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Book .04l2.Se:- 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 










A STRANGE FELLOW 
AND 

OTHER CLUB PAPERS 



HANNIBAL SHOULD IWE HAD 3333 ELEPHANTS I ONE THIRD * THEN HIS SHOW 
-OFTAKING ROME—WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER-V/DE- "IN THE CLASSICAL LANDS’ 








A STRANGE FELLOW 

AND 

OTHER CLUB PAPERS 


WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED 
BY 

IRVING Kf- POND 

C.E. ARCHT. A.M.hon. ARCH. D. hon. 


Privately Printed by 
Willett, Clark and Company 
New York 1938 Chicago 


Q/r^j £, 







T 5 35 31 

. ft-n 5s 


Copyright 1938 by 

IRVING K. POND 

, * 


( 13 ? 


Manufactured in The U.S.A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-LaPorte, Ind. 


©ClA 1 4241 5 


MAR -4 1940 



/I/, r/zs/i-' 


To tMy 

Tatient Qlubmates 
especially those of 
The Qhicago Tfiterary Club 
who have borne with me 
<£o! 

these Fifty years 


o 


CONTENTS 


TO BEGIN WITH 

A STRANGE FELLOW 
My first appearance before the 
Club 

THE MYSTERY OF THE 
LIGHT 

Written while the incandes¬ 
cent light was still in its in¬ 
fancy 

THE PLEASURES OF 
TRAVEL 

Read in conjunction with a 
travel paper by my brother, 
Allen B. Pond, “ Where 
Moses Stood” 


PAGE 

3 

Nov. ii, 1889 9 


Mar. 2, 1891 47 


Apr. 16, 1894 83 


THE WHALE —A STUDY Nov. 22, 1897 101 

The Historic School of Jonah 
Fish stories by club members 

POETRY NIGHT Mar. 5, 1917 107 

Chapter Introductions 
The Heliogabali 
Sonnet: Immortality 


VI 


CONTENTS 


Vers Libre: A definition, a 
prelude, and a pome. 

BOOK NIGHT Mar. 15, 1920 

Such stuff as Dreams are made 
on — Reviewing the Haunted 
Book Shop 

AN ARCHITECT IN THE 
CLASSICAL LANDS Oct. 18, 1926 

Condensed from “ I’m a 
Member of the Cruise ” 

ON BELIEVING AND 
LEAVING Oct. 15, 1928 

An exposition of my own feel¬ 
ings 

ARTIST AND MODEL Oct. 22, 1934 

Excerpts from the essay en¬ 
titled “ Just One Thing After 
Another ” 


vii 


PAGE 

121 

133 

157 

191 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


HANNIBAL IN THE ALPS frontispiece 

VIGNETTE 2 

ONE COULD HEAR A BUZZING SOUND 8 

ARE YOU NOT AFRAID OF MENTAL 
DYSPEPSIA 46 

WE CLIMBED UPWARD FOR HOURS 82 

ONE PROPHET FROM MAKER TO CON¬ 
SUMER 100 

AND SO, AS POETRY WILL NOT COME 106 

THE HAND THAT ROUNDED PETER’S 
DOME 120 

YE MEN OF ATHENS 132 

SOME STILL PROFESS TO BELIEVE 156 

INTO THIS CHAMBER OF THE IMAGI¬ 
NATION 190 


Vlll 


TO BEGIN WITH 















TO BEGIN WITH 


T HE Chicago Literary Club, composed of men 
from the various trades and professions, was 
founded in March of 1874 and still, in its sixty- 
third year, is a thriving and virile organization. It 
has been facetiously referred to as a literary club 
which never counted a professional literary man 
among its members. However that may be, its 
membership roll contained and contains the names 
of many men whose literary work in point of style 
and content will carry well down into the corridors 
of time. Collyer, Swing, Mason, Head, Payne, 
Cheney, Locke, Barrows, Salter, Paul Shorey are a 
few of the many. 

I joined the Club in the fall of 1888 and at the 
time of this writing stand second in the resident list 
in length of membership. I was the fiftieth presi¬ 
dent of the Club, serving during the season of 1922- 
23. To date I have contributed to the Club’s enter¬ 
tainment on thirty-one occasions for only one of 
which (an emergency call in 1893) preparation was 
not made in regular course. 

The themes which I have handled were varied 

3 


CLUB PAPERS 

ranging from the two stories which appear in this 
volume through architecture, acrobatics and art in 
general to ethics and literary criticism. The prin¬ 
ciples and philosophy underlying the architectural 
papers are set forth in my book “ The Meaning 
of Architecture ” (Boston, 19185 Kroch, Chicago, 
1932) a work which is listed by the American Li¬ 
brary Association. One of my three essays on Acro¬ 
batics was published as a club paper in 1924, and the 
ideas underlying all three are set forth in my recent 
book, €< Big To'p Rhythms ” (Willett, Clark & Co., 
Chicago, 1937). 

The first story, “ A Strange Fellow ” was written 
during a period of intense labor strife in Chicago 
when I was trying to determine to my own satisfac¬ 
tion on which side, if either, the right lay. At that 
time, too, the unsolved and spectacular Dr. Cronin 
murder case was holding a large share of the public 
interest. The genesis of “ The Mystery of the 
Light” was amusing. Written originally for and 
read before the Saracen Club, it was a little later, 
upon request, given a place in the Literary Club’s 
programme. The general scheme of the story came 
to me suddenly as I read in the funny column of a 
daily paper the following: 

A farmer in a restaurant, seeing croquettes 
invitingly served at a neighboring table, or¬ 
dered a portion for himself. He took a gen- 
4 


TO BEGIN WITH 


erous mouthful, his eyes bulged, and he ejacu¬ 
lated disgustedly — “Gosh! Hash! ” 

Perhaps an imaginative reader will be able to find 
a connection between this item and “ my ” experi¬ 
ence in “ her father’s ” laboratory when I found 
“ myself ” partaking of Roast Duck and Burgundy! 
Around that laboratory incident the story was built. 

I have placed the papers in the book in the order in 
which they were presented before the Club. Even 
so, the subject matter falls into three fairly distinct 
categories j first, the two stories and a lighter travel 
sketch j then, the excerpts and shorter pieces, some 
light and some not so light 5 and, third, a somewhat 
more philosophical travel essay and the two more 
serious papers. Readers who may seek entertain¬ 
ment will begin with the first and read onward; 
those who would seek enlightenment will begin with 
the last paper and relax as they read, as does the 
oriental, towards the front. Perhaps the wise reader 
will pursue a meandering course through the book, 
while the very, very wise will read it not at all. 


5 











A STRANGE FELLOW 


ONE COULD HEAR A BUZZING SOUND FROM A DARK BOX ON THE CORNER. 

8 












A STRANGE FELLOW 

A STORY WITH AN IMMORAL 

INTRODUCTION 

I F THE DAILY papers had made the “ scoop ” 
our story probably would have come to us in dif¬ 
ferent form. There would have been much more 
of sensationally imaginative detail and less of quiet 
truth. There would have been headlines — block 
letters, double leaded — like this: 

MIDNIGHT ASSASSINS PUT TO ROUT! 

A Band of Bloody Minded Robbers 

Invade the Hallowed Precincts of a 
Wealthy Home on Michigan Avenue 
— and are nobly Repulsed by the Coura¬ 
geous Owner , Samuel Wheattop , Es¬ 
quire. He engages one of the Murder¬ 
ers in Personal Combat and forces him to 
the Wall . Valuable papers Recovered! 
Loaded Weapons fall UndischargedI 
Where were the Police? Let Chief 
Hubbard Rise and Explain! 

9 


CLUB PAPERS 

Then would have followed a diagram of the room 
in which the terrific conflict took place, made up of 
rules and dashes and uppercase letters, and under¬ 
neath a descriptive reference such as must of neces¬ 
sity accompany any highly imaginative work of Art. 

A — bed in which the intended victims were 
quietly sleeping — wholly unconscious of the un¬ 
holy dangers breeding about them. 

B — stand — a drawer of which contained valu¬ 
able papers and a loaded revolver. 

C — stand at Mr. Samuel Wheattop’s bedside, 
on which lay a well filled pocketbook! 

D — chiffonier — on which in a golden bowl, 
containing delicately scented water, reposed two 
rows of pearls in a gold setting — Mrs. Wheattop’s 
artificial teeth! 

E — door by which assassins entered the apart¬ 
ment! 

F — toilet stand whereon lay frizzes, bangs, 
powder, etc., in fact all the delicacies necessary to 
the finished toilet of a lovely society leader. 

Then would have followed a hatchet cut of 
Samuel Wheattop Esq. and his wife from life and a 
portrait of the assassins from the newspaper artist’s 
comprehension of a confused description — giving 
the police a very tangible clue on which to base de¬ 
tective operations. Now, if the daily papers had 
made the scoop the story would have been exciting 
io 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


and no doubt some family skeletons would have been 
exposed in a heartless way to public gaze. But the 
police did not hear of the case for some time and 
then their knowledge would not have been sufficient 
to found a newspaper lie on — how slight that 
knowledge must have been! —and we are at lib¬ 
erty now to hear and tell the truth about the matter! 

THE STORY 

Over nearly half the world the mantle of dark¬ 
ness was spread. In the depth of its folds the great 
city lay in slumber. The myriad chimneys had 
ceased for a time to belch out black smoke which 
made the darkness of the day more tangible if not 
more profound than the darkness of the night. The 
last of the suburban trains were sleepily dragging 
their slow lengths along. By some strange accident 
Bridgeport had closed its doors early in the evening 
and of all the vile odors Chicago knows so well, that 
of the river alone was loud enough to break the gen¬ 
eral stillness of the air! 

Of the dust stirred up by the street sweeping ma¬ 
chines, much had fallen quietly back into place, 
much had lodged in the lungs and on the clothes of 
those who were exposed and much had descended 
upon the roofs of the street cars to be carried out 
onto the prairie farms which had recently been an¬ 
nexed to the city, to be spread over them by the 
ii 


CLUB PAPERS 

gentle lake zephyrs that they might present on the 
surface, at least, an urban air, and take the keen edge 
off those numerous jokes that lifted their grinning 
faces above the heads of waving corn: 


These choice city Lots 
for Sale by Narygold 
ioo Newborn Street, Chicago 

Through the heart and along the main arteries of 
the city where, indeed, peace never comes, the blood 
was still noisily throbbing, but in the residence dis¬ 
tricts quiet reigned. However, sleepless ones and 
watchers by beds of pain could hear, now and then, 
the whack of the policeman’s billy against the lamp- 
post and the answering whack in the distance; and 
at regular intervals they could hear, if they were in 
range, a buzzing sound, like a dentist’s drill in a soft 
tooth, issuing from a dark box on the corner and 
could catch fragments of one side of the conversation 
which generally followed the buzz: “ This is Mur¬ 
phy! — ach! —kim off — Cronin! —naw! ” At 
least that was what Raymond Hope heard as he was 
passing the patrol box in an aristocratic neighbor¬ 
hood at about i :30 a.m. 

There were few or no lights to be seen in the win¬ 
dows round about, for sleep, with firm, though gen¬ 
tle hand, had temporarily throttled the gas trust and 
12 



A STRANGE FELLOW 


stopped the flow of gold into its bottomless pocket. 
A gleam from a watchman’s lantern showed now 
and then on the houses along the street and now and 
then again would be reflected from the star on an 
officer’s breast. 

The young man who overheard the fragment 
quoted wore a cheerful professional air and carried 
what the policeman, who had just issued from the 
box, took to be a case of surgeon’s instruments. The 
two met face to face, and the young man asked, 
“ What about Cronin? Have they caught him 
yet? ” Supposing his questioner to be a clever 
young physician from a neighboring hospital, the 
officer sought to correct his slip. 

“Ye mane T ascott! ” said he. “ N aw, and its me- 
silf ” — 

“No! ” said the other, “ It was the doctor I had 
in mind. I have paid no attention to the case since 
he was seen in Canada — in fact had forgotten about 
him till you mentioned his name just now.” 

“Why! he’s dead! and they’re thryin him! ” 

“ No! ” 

“ It’s mesilf that’s thinkin’ whot an illegant jury 
you’d have made in this case! ” exclaimed the of¬ 
ficer. 

“Well, why didn’t they send around for me. 
I’m always willing to do my share for the public 
good.” 


13 




CLUB PAPERS 

“ But you doctors is eximpted,” said the officer, 
“ perhaps that’s why ye didn’t kape up on the case! ” 

“ Oh pshaw! I don’t care anything about that,” 
returned the young man. a I’d rather appear in 
Court as a juryman than in any capacity I am likely 
to appear in! ” and with a light laugh which broke 
into a whistled air the young man with the case of 
instruments started off in the direction of the hos¬ 
pital — but he didn’t reach there that night. 

Broker Samuel Wheattop had returned home 
from a meeting of the Sunset Club some hours be¬ 
fore, ready to start out on a crusade and reform the 
world’s labor and criminal classes. The discussion 
at the Club dinner had touched on these classes, and 
although the dinner was served in courses, evidently 
the classes were not; at least, when, on his return 
home, he reported certain phases of the Club talk to 
his wife, the classes were as hopelessly jumbled in 
his mind as were the dinner courses in his stomach. 
He spoke of reform; what he really meant — if he 
could have read himself — was annihilation; for in 
his human instincts and sympathies he was alto¬ 
gether too narrow to be able to appreciate the stand¬ 
point of the reformer. Of course, there were speak¬ 
ers at the club who expressed strong sympathy with 
labor! but this, he told his wife, was merely for ef¬ 
fect; they did not believe what they were saying, 
and to argue with them was to no purpose. As for 
14 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


himself, he wanted to meet one of this labor class, 
this criminal class, in person and determine from 
him what his thoughts and ideas really were — and 
to convert him if might be. 

So far as a part of his wish was concerned, it was 
granted that night and the broker found himself de¬ 
cidedly at a disadvantage. 

The Wheattop residence was not far from the box 
at which Officer Murphy and the young man had 
chatted. It was what is termed an elegant mansion, 
and in all its appointments was exquisite for the 
Wheattops were, fortunately, people of taste as well 
as of great wealth. 

As Mr. Wheattop’s sentiment for the beautiful 
in nature and in art was profound and his judgments 
of technical work just, a lavish expenditure had pro¬ 
cured to him a rare collection of paintings and ob¬ 
jects of virtu. Moreover, he talked well on art 
matters and when he spoke of the Mystery of the 
Corot, the beautiful drawing of the Meissonier or 
of feeling or technique generally, evidently he knew 
whereof he spoke for he never belied himself by 
purchasing a chromo or a daub. It does seem, how¬ 
ever, that beyond their high technical qualities the 
value of some of his poetical paintings must have 
been lost to him, he was so deficient on the side of 
his human sympathies, though he did not know it. 
But his wife did appreciate the fact, and it was more 
15 


CLUB PAPERS 

than fortunate that she contributed to the common 
store a nature highly sensitive along those lines when 
the marriage vows made their two souls one! Their 
combined forces made their home an attractive point 
to a noble line of guests. Not the least notable of 
their callers, though perhaps the least noble, and 
again perhaps not, was the young man who had the 
few words with Officer Murphy. 

Now that young man was in many ways as emi¬ 
nently respectable a fellow as one would be apt to 
meet with in a night’s journey. His ear was never 
closed to the cry of the poor and his hand was 
stretched out to their needs. It would be easy 
enough to lionize him for in his way he was a genius. 
He was a burglar — but he was a genius! 

There is a sickly sentimentality which will ask, 
does not the day-star of genius illumine the black¬ 
ness of a stained character, of a ruined name? 
Doubtless this has been true of many who have 
walked along the most exalted plains of intellectual 
and moral life. Many a slip may be forgiven to him 
through whose heart rushes the impassioned, resist¬ 
less tide of humanity, making him an inspired 
mouth-piece, making him to elevate and cheer and 
charm the race in poem and story, in song and in art. 

But Raymond Hope’s genius was not of this sort 
for, in spite of his real love for his fellows, he was a 
menace to society and placed himself beyond the 
16 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


pale of sympathy by the continued acts of his daily, 
or rather nightly, life. Had he stolen — once — 
or twice — even, through hunger! But he was a 
burglar — by choice! 

The reasons he once gave for making that choice, 
for placing himself in a position antagonistic to all 
recognized forms of law, might fall flat on staid old 
conservatives of a straitlaced school, but they would 
appeal, and not without force, to the sympathetic 
student of American life today. 

“ Oh! no! ” he was heard to say, “ business is not 
degrading, but not every bright boy even has an 
aptitude for business. Can an American boy enter 
the trades? The professions are overcrowded. Oh, 
yes! there is room at the top! But that is cold com¬ 
fort for one who, though ambitious, knows his limi¬ 
tations j and especially for one who scorns trickery 
and has not the patience to plod, while others are 
passing by him up the hill of public esteem by taking 
disgusting advantage of their fellowmen. How¬ 
ever, there are members of one profession I have in 
mind, and which I admire, who do not jostle or 
crowd each other because there are too many to the 
square foot. I refer to the medical missionaries in 
the slums. It is a great field, that! But to invest 
one’s life in that way doesn’t bring sufficiently large 
or speedy returns for most of us. Art is not appre¬ 
ciated by the public sufficiently to make the life of 
17 


CLUB PAPERS 

the artist more than drudgery and disappointment, 
and many a sensitive soul, capable of highest de¬ 
velopment under the genial sunshine of intelligent 
appreciation, has refused to prostitute his art, has 
fallen back into business lines for which he had no 
flair, and has failed — he may have made a good 
living but his life was a failure! All paths, smooth 
or rough, to honest toil seem to be guarded against 
the American boy today. 

“ As for politics, which should be in the hands of 
incorruptible men, surely no American father would 
want to see his boy embark in that rotten ship on the 
seething sea of demoralization. A few men have 
manned their own craft and by a kind fate have hap¬ 
pened to sail through unharmed — but they are 
few. What is there in our local administrative de¬ 
partments which should not put a sensitive man with 
any idea whatsoever of justice in direct antipathy to 
the powers that be? 

“ I don’t want to say anything against the police,” 
said he, “ they don’t bother me much, but is not their 
whole internal system a hollow mockery? They 
have to get the Irish murder cases worked up by Ger¬ 
man detectives! The German anarchists are hunted 
down by Irish policemen — and they are all dead 
against the American. A friendless young fellow 
has a hard pull in the great city today. My trial in 
18 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


some of the so-called straight lines was not a brilliant 
success — consequently — I am here.” 

His confreres, who had never an idea above the 
most improved methods of cracksmanship, looked 
on him as a strange fellow, and after one of his talks 
one asked him why he didn’t preach for a living. 
Certainly his answer was strange for one in his branch 
of art — “Well — I don’t care to be responsible for 
more souls than one! ” A preacher responsible! — 
a ball like that once set rolling would knock down 
long rows of preachers! 

And now we may view the direction in which Ray¬ 
mond Hope’s genius lay. He planned his cam¬ 
paigns with all the clear sightedness of a general and 
almost always carried them out to the letter, for he 
usually caught the enemy napping. Late in the 
afternoon of the day on which broker Wheattop ut¬ 
tered his wish Raymond Hope, in the character of 
telephone company’s lineman, ascended to the roof 
of a neighboring building and severed the wires 
which connected the Wheattop mansion with the dis¬ 
trict headquarters of the police and fire departments. 
This was a wise precaution in this day of delicate 
electrical apparatus. It is a high function of genius 
to note trifles and to use them to advantage. To 
many the fire alarm would have been an unimpor¬ 
tant feature j not so to this man. He had known 
19 


CLUB PAPERS 

men to be very warm when awakened to no good 
purpose from a sound sleep. He had heard, even, 
that the touch of a dainty feminine toe or a wife’s 
cold foot against the small of the back would some¬ 
times awaken in men such warm expressions of opin¬ 
ion that the fusible metal of the fire alarm would 
certainly burn with shame if it were as sensitive as it 
should be. Then, moreover, some occupant of a dis¬ 
tant chamber might be awakened by a disturbance 
and take the fire alarm method of sending a call. It 
does not pay to take risks — so he always discon¬ 
nected both systems. 

Upon leaving the Officer, the supposed doctor 
went directly to the home he intended to honor with 
a call. He scanned it carefully for a moment to 
make sure all was well, then walked quietly to the 
back porch and with little or no inconvenience found 
himself on the roof. The bathroom window was 
unfastened as he had expected and raising the sash 
he entered. He had been in the house years before 
in another capacity and also but a few days before in 
still another capacity and he knew the lines. He de¬ 
scended to the porch door and undid all the fasten¬ 
ings but one thumb-bolt which could be quickly 
turned in case a hasty exit became necessary. He 
left this bolt undrawn to protect the house against 
watchmen and common thieves and, so guarded 
from interruption from without, he quietly got 
20 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


down to business. The safe door responded to his 
magic touch and some valuable silver was placed 
conveniently near to the door through which he was 
to take his leave. 

But the safe had not yielded up all he expected 
of it, and after an unsuccessful search through the 
drawers of the library he ascended to the sleeping 
apartments to see if they would not furnish the de¬ 
sired booty. This was no acceptable part of the mis¬ 
sion to him for, in these undertakings, he always 
tried to avoid contact with human beings, even sleep¬ 
ing, and had never started on one of his expeditions 
with a murderous weapon in his possesssion. To¬ 
night was no exception. 

Why it should have happened just as it did, the 
fates alone can tell, but the injured capitalists and 
oppressive laborers had met in Samuel Wheattop’s 
dream with a crash. He had awakened with a start, 
and was sitting bolt upright in bed, when the cham¬ 
ber door opened softly and Raymond Hope entered. 
The burglar had not expected this, but he took the 
situation by the horns. 

u I beg your pardon! ” he said. 

u Pray don’t mention it,” returned the broker 
with a majestic sweep of the arm. He was calming 
the disturbing elements of his nightmare with his 
waking thoughts and this was still part of his dream. 

Suddenly he realized his position and knew that 
21 


CLUB PAPERS 

his wish to meet a criminal face to face had been 
granted. And O, Lord! how was he to sustain his 
dignity — much less make a convert, he might have 
thought, if that phase had struck him! 

As soon as the burglar saw that his victim had no 
weapon at hand, the calmness of his expression be¬ 
came a truthful index to his mind. He did not seem 
to notice the broker’s action in placing his hand on a 
pocketbook on the stand at his bedside. That pock- 
etbook was one of the broker’s little devices — un¬ 
der ordinary conditions to grasp it would be to send 
a call to the police. 

“Don’t mention it! ” the broker had said! It 
touched the burglar’s sense of humor under the cir¬ 
cumstances and with what might have been a wink, 
had his face been less sternly set, he responded: 

“No! I won’t speak of it in public! ” “ Come 
now, not a motion,” he added, as the broker stirred 
his legs under the covers, “ just one peep and you 
are a dead man;” and the burglar’s hand went very 
suggestively to his pistol pocket and rested there. 

“ Quietly now,” he said, “ so as not to disturb 
your wife.” The broker watched with some appre¬ 
hension the movement of the intruder’s hand, and 
seeing, as he thought, the murderous expression of 
his face, wisely concluded to remain quiet — for his 
own sake as well as for his wife’s. 


22 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


“ What do you want here? ” he asked in a hard 
whisper. “ There isn’t a cent of money in the house 
except what is in this pocketbook.” 

“ I don’t want your money,” said the burglar, 
“ I want a package of papers, sealed and marked 
c Special ’ and I want it pretty speedily too! ” 

The broker started and the cold perspiration 
broke out all over him. A package of bonds with 
coupons attached — how did he know of them? 
The broker, himself, had brought them up from 
town with papers for his wife’s signature and they 
were to go to his daughter’s husband in New York 
in the morning. They must not be taken. They 
lay in the unlocked drawer of a desk just behind the 
burglar, and beside them lay a loaded revolver. 
He would deceive the villain, would get up to open 
the safe for him and in passing would get the 
weapon, and then he would be a more even match 
for the wretch whose hand seemingly was still on the 
handle of his gun. 

It would have been an immense relief to the 
broker to know that besides the hand there was noth¬ 
ing in that pocket but a sponge and a vial of chloro¬ 
form. Oh, too! that he might gain time for the 
police patrol which surely would be upon them be¬ 
fore many moments. 

“ They are in the safe down ” — he began. 
23 


CLUB PAPERS 

“ Hist! ” said the burglar, as he turned the night 
light a trifle higher, “ they are not there, I have 
looked! ” 

That was an unexpected blow to the broker and 
knocked nearly all his wind out but he had enough 
left to continue feebly “ at the office! ” 

“ No! you 1— excuse me, they are in this house. 
Come, where are they? ” 

The broker unconsciously cast a longing, almost 
vanquished look at the drawer in which the revolver 
lay at rest. 

The burglar had noticed his glance take that di¬ 
rection before and moving quietly backward, with 
his eye still fixed on the broker’s face, at last put his 
left hand down and touched the desk. He knew it 
perfectly. Years before, as representative of a great 
daily, he had been in this same room with this same 
man who now lay there breathless and trembling in 
his bed, and with his wife, who lay calmly sleeping at 
his side — but she must have had a clear conscience 
— and among other bridal gifts to their daughter, 
for it was her wedding day, they had showed him 
some bonds in that drawer! The thought of that 
time made him take back his hand with a start, but 
soon he put it out again and opened the desk. 

As he reached down to discover the contents he 
gave a shudder for his hand came in contact with the 
24 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


cold steel. He knew instantly what it was and 
cursed luck for putting it in his reach. Then, he 
thought, after all fate was doing him a good turn in 
disclosing to him this hidden danger and in giving 
him a chance to leave the house alive. As he took 
up the weapon a swift glance downwards revealed 
to him the coveted papers! 

In an atmosphere so charged with the curious, 
chloroform itself could not have held in bond the 
weakest of feminine instincts, to say nothing of the 
most powerful, and Mrs. Wheattop awoke. 

There was a sharp rattle in the broker’s throat 
and a fragment of an oath escaped from his lips. 
His wife turned toward him with an expression of 
tenderest solicitude. 

“ What is it? ” she asked in alarm. “ Are you 
ill? ” as her eyes fell on her husband’s ghastly face. 
Immediately she turned in the direction in which 
his gaze was strained and beheld the intruder. She 
did not shriek nor faint, but gave the wretch a glance 
which was intended to pierce him like a knife. 

“ Sir! ” she demanded, “ what do you wish? ” 

“ I beg your forgiveness, madam, I mean no 
harm to either of you! ” He had considerately put 
the weapon out of sight. “ I came to your husband 
on a matter of business with which I could not well 
approach him at any other time. I am sorry to have 
25 


CLUB PAPERS 

disturbed you, believe me, it is against my wish! ” 

“ And against mine,” she cried. “ Leave, this in¬ 
stant! ” 

There was something so persuasive in her com¬ 
mand, that the burglar was well inclined toward 
going. But the situation was so unique that he did 
not care to break it, especially as he knew that he 
could hold it as long as he chose and with harm to 
none of them. 

There was now one spark of hope in the broker’s 
breast. Evidently the villain had not discovered 
the papers and by some means he must be enticed 
away from their immediate vicinity. He turned 
and whispered a word in his wife’s ear. The look 
of pain which shot instantly across her face was a 
full noontide to which the intense expression of her 
husband’s visage was but a twilight, so fathomless 
is a mother’s love. 

“ He must not get them! ” Their hearts said 
that much and more. “ He must not get them! ” 

The burglar read that much in their faces and be¬ 
hind his imperturbable features there played a smile 
of scorn, for people who cared so much for money, 
to whom the prospective loss of the bonds and of 
the little money it would take to redeem those 
papers could cause such pain. Their circle of 
friends, their tastes as expressed in public, their sur¬ 
roundings and manner of life, all pointed to them 
26 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


as people of higher ideals. He could not resist the 
temptation to play with them — so he moved a few 
feet from where their treasure lay and coolly seated 
himself in full sight of them both on the arm of a 
chair. 

But he had not read their hearts. Ah! there lay 
the skeleton those vultures, the reporters, would 
have picked at before the eyes of the world. Their 
only daughter’s husband had betrayed a great trust 
and was on the verge of a dishonor worse than ruin. 
To shield her, it might be to save him, those papers 
must be in a distant city within forty hours of that 
time, and if they missed — God help them all and 
especially her! It was altogether a pity that the 
burglar could not have read their hearts — but he 
was human and was just then bent on enjoying the 
advantage of his position. 

His change of base had brought to them easier 
breathing — and oh! again that they might detain 
him till the police could arrive! In the broker’s 
fancy the police had come! Singular that fellow 
should sit there so seemingly undisturbed and let 
himself be taken! 

Thus, strangely, were brought face to face these 
two men of pronounced and widely varying traits of 
character. The underlying element of the broker’s 
life was a deep moral or, perhaps better, intellectual 
principle of right, a character which in its complete¬ 
ly 


CLUB PAPERS 

ness gives nobility and grandeur to humanity. But 
in the broker it seemed so deeply buried that it rarely 
stirred upon the surface. He sometimes swerved 
from the straight line in matters sentimental — who 
of his type does not? 

As to the other — his wellspring of action seemed 
to be a sentiment which lay near to the surface and 
responded to the lightest call. It is a trait of char¬ 
acter which brings relief to distress and lends the 
hand of comfort to sorrow. This man was not al¬ 
ways found in the paths of rectitude, but who is who 
commits himself entirely to the control of sentiment 
or the passions? 

“ As you passed the Palmer House tonight,” said 
the burglar, looking the broker straight in the eye, 
“ you were speaking of reforming — the criminals 
— was it not? — well how are you going to do it? ” 

To an ordinary man, a question like that, coming 
so close upon a time of burning emotions, kindled 
by such anxieties, would have been fraught with 
something of terror. Not so to the broker, the re¬ 
former. A reformer is a creature more strange than 
a sentimental burglar. Why does the reformer al¬ 
ways climb upon the line fence and closely scan his 
neighbor’s garden, heedless of the rank tares spread¬ 
ing in his own. Reform like charity should begin 
at home, only reform must take one more step, a 
28 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


personal step which charity can never safely take, 
and begin in the individual. 

But the broker was not now thinking of himself 
or of his daughter’s husband. The laborer was 
rising before his excited vision. “ You devil! ” said 
the broker internally, and he may be pardoned 
under the circumstances. 

“ Sir! ” he said aloud, “ it would be fruitless to 
speak of this with you! ” 

“ How do you know? ” 

The broker hesitated. 
u You are fallen too low! ” 

“ I thank you, but is that the position a reformer 
should take? ” 

“ Yes! in some cases,” returned the broker some¬ 
what hotly. 

“ Perhaps you don’t think I am worth reform¬ 
ing,” smiled the burglar. “ Let me give you a little 
advice for your own sake to aid you in your work of 
reform. We used to learn in our study of the equa¬ 
tions of the curves, that what was true of a curve as 
it approached the limits was true at the limits, and 
we learned that the reverse was true, did we not? 
Well sir! when you find one case too low to try to 
help, you may be sure there is something vitally 
wrong with the law of your curve, and that there 
are other cases way back, higher up, that you cannot 
29 


CLUB PAPERS 

touch. Will you pardon me if I go on? I will not 
be personal longer, what I say is general. This is 
the age of reform, yet no one seems to understand 
its laws. Capital is setting out to reform labor. 
Labor strikes to reform capital. Each hopes for 
success and the struggle continues. I think labor has 
rather the worst of the fight.” 

“ I hardly think you understand the position of 
capital today,” the broker was forced to interrupt. 

“ Not from personal grounds,” admitted the 
burglar. 

“ The fight today,” continued the broker, “ is 
between factions of capital, and it is the capitalist 
who suffers, not the laborer.” 

“ The stones grind one against the other,” ex¬ 
claimed the burglar, “ and the grain between is 
crushed j if labor did not of necessity get between it 
would not be ground.” 

“ But capital suffers primarily,” persisted Mr. 
Wheattop. 

“ And labor is ground, and not through fault of 
its own,” returned the other. “ Do you expect to 
reform labor by telling it that capital suffers through 
internal derangement? Then labor will say to you, 
and justly , c reform capital! ’ and that is the pith of 
the matter; for this world has swung along too far 
in the orbit of reform for one class to seek to reform 
another because it holds temporary power! That 
30 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


already has been tried in many fields and has failed. 
Riches cannot reform poverty — labor cannot re¬ 
form capital — capital cannot reform labor. He 
who would take upon his shoulders the burden of 
the reformer must have a heart as deep as another’s 
misery — a sympathy as broad as humanity and a 
spirit as lowly as the lowliest, otherwise he must 
confine his work of reformation in very narrow 
circles! ” 

The lines of mild irony which had been deepen¬ 
ing about Mr. Wheattop’s mouth finally parted his 
lips and he said: “ You amuse me, and yet I feel like 
correcting you. You very evidently do not under¬ 
stand the relationships existing between the various 
classes. You certainly do not appreciate the attitude 
of the rich to the poor — nor could you be expected 
to — but you do an injury to the cause of universal 
peace by willfully misunderstanding the motives 
and feelings of the upper class toward the lower and 
by misrepresenting us to the lower. It is the rav¬ 
ings of these blatant agitators that widens the gap 
between the classes.” 

“ Pardon me,” said the burglar, “ but if we are to 
place so grave a responsibility let us place it rightly. 
It is not lodged entirely with the blatherskites nor 
with the supersensitive ones of the lower classes as 
many good people are led to believe. Too much of 
it lies with the upper class as you are pleased to call 
3i 


CLUB PAPERS 

it. It is mighty little the members of your class (in 
general I mean, there are some noble exceptions) 
care or think about their less fortunate brothers. 
They regard any movement on the part of the labor¬ 
ing class, for instance, to better its condition as a 
presumptuous striving to climb out of the mould in 
which fate — you call it Providence or God — cast 
them, and to fit themselves into a sphere forever 
above them. It takes a time of discord and of up¬ 
heaval to call the attention of many of you to the 
downtrodden at all. And when your attention is 
called, is it not rather in a personal manner as to 
how the trouble will affect you, as to whether the 
red flag will really float triumphantly for a time, 
than what of permanent value and benefit to all 
concerned will be reached in the ultimate outcome 
of events? How can I misrepresent you to the poor. 
My associates, contrary to your implication, are not 
among the lower classes. I enter more frequently 
into the homes of the rich than into the abodes of 
poverty. There are not many valuable papers in 
the homes of the poor and their safes are not worth 
the cracking.” 

The burglar could not resist the temptation to 
play on tender chords. 

“ But I could not misrepresent your class feelings 
if I would — your weak ones too vividly present 
them. Let me show you how heartless you can be. 

32 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


It was on that sad May morning, whose fatal con¬ 
sequences will not soon be forgotten in many homes 
of this city. There had been blood shed at McCor¬ 
mick’s. The strikers had come in contact with the 
police. Right into that quarter of the city drove a 
tallyho — a coach and four, with coachman, foot¬ 
man, and wind-bag, done up in white skin trousers, 
top boots, green coats, high hats and cockades — 
complete and absolute personifications of servility 
and degradation — how can one stoop so low as to 
wear that rig! On that coach which passed through 
that region of pain and starving and despair were the 
daughters of your class, with bright, happy, careless 
faces, and your sons — shallow pated dudes, with 
monocles and high collars which creased their chins 
and kept their lower jaws from slipping back into 
imbecility; and in spite of the insult offered to men 
of sense and sorrow by such a display, at such a time 
and in such a place, the party passed unmolested, 
unheeded perhaps, in spite of the tooting of the long 
horn, unheeded perhaps, except by those whose 
hearts were not stirred to envy, but whose eyes were 
moistened by the heartlessness in the upper class! I 
tell you the red flag on Michigan Avenue on that 
Thanksgiving day was a more blessed sight in the 
eyes of the* angels — at least in the eyes of respect¬ 
able humanity. 

“ Do I misrepresent your class? ” continued the 

33 


CLUB PAPERS 

burglar. “ What is to be said for a class, acceptable 
members of which ride through the city stretched 
out at full length in their victorias with ankle joints 
exposed, embracing little curs the cost and mainte¬ 
nance of each of which would more than endow a 
cot in the hospital which its mistress passes daily in 
ignorance of its purpose or existence. It makes me 
sick! ” 

It was beginning to make the broker sick too, 
when suddenly there came to his ear a faint sound 
which caused new life to flow in his veins. A dis¬ 
tant rumble — a clang — as of a gong. They were 
coming but why would they not come quietly and 
surprise the wretch and not give him an alarm and 
a chance to escape? The noise grew louder, the 
clangor fiercer and, in a whirl of uproar and flame, 
the district engine rounded the corner and vanished 
down the side street. 

Forty shades of expression passed over the bro¬ 
ker’s countenance as the burglar sat there coolly eye¬ 
ing him, and his profound fall from the pinnacle of 
hope into the pit of despair cast a gloom over the 
party for some moments. Finally the burglar broke 
the silence. 

“ That slight disturbance in the street interrupted 
our line of conversation. We were speaking of that 
incident of the strikes.” 

The broker’s disappointment almost had the 

34 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


better of him. u That one word — c strikes/ ” he 
muttered, “ is enough to divert all sympathy from 
the laboring classes. The strike is the most wanton 
engine of destruction in the hands of labor today. 
To strike should be a criminal act! ” 

u And so you would manufacture criminals — not 
reform them,” suggested the burglar. 

“ It would lessen the propensity for striking if 
justice were to hold its flaming sword before the 
strikers,” dogmatized the broker. 

“ That fabled sword of justice had two edges,” 
said his tormentor quietly. u Let us not condone 
the wrong of the strikers, nor let us impute all the 
evil to them. Is it wrong for a single employee to 
leave his employer in a time of need, supposing pre¬ 
vious relations between them to have been just? 
Morally wrong, always. Legally wrong, never! 
Is the situation changed when the single employee 
is multiplied into a hundred? Hardly, I think. 
But, Mr. Broker, the laborer acts and conducts his 
affairs under the same general immoral law that 
governs the universe of trade today — your neces¬ 
sity is my opportunity.” 

“ It certainly is so in your branch of trade! ” 
sadly remarked Mrs. Wheattop. 

“ Let us not be personal,” said the burglar. “ I 
could not well exist in an age and be entirely out 
of harmony with it — no more could the capitalist! 
35 


CLUB PAPERS 

It is the general law though and even personal 
friendship sometimes falls before it. But we are 
not so apt to take advantage of those toward whom 
our personal sympathies extend and so it seems to me 
that when the c brotherhood of man ’ is made a 
factor of daily life instead of a text for vague preach¬ 
ing, as it is today along with the kindred topics of 
sweetness and light, the element of personal sym¬ 
pathy will enter more broadly into the mixture of 
life and the immoral law as formulated will be a 
thing of the past.” 

“ Is not the reign of brotherly love hopelessly 
far away,” asked Mrs. Wheattop in a tone wavering 
between kindliness and bitter irony, “ when one 
who, like yourself, speaking in its behalf still bends 
his life energies against it? ” 

a It does seem hopelessly far away, Madam, 
when those who would care the most for it know 
not how to bend their forces toward it. Our human 
natures and all the wanton engines of civilization, as 
you would call them, Mr. Broker, are fighting 
against it.” 

“ I do not recognize the force of this law of trade 
you have formulated,” said the broker. 

“ The law is none of my formulating. It is a 
condensed decalogue and, so far as it touches the 
relationships of men, was engraved on everlasting 
bronze long ago by the adamantine tool of human 
36 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


selfishness. It is a principle of the great law of evo¬ 
lution, nature obeys it implicitly and on her im¬ 
mortal tablets it is inscribed — ‘ The Survival of the 
Fittest! ’ ” 

“You are pessimistic, young man! ” said the 
broker partly in interest, partly with the police pa¬ 
trol in mind. “ This law you propound antedates 
the earliest days of creation! Come down to today 
and, to be precise, tell me one product of modern 
thought and meanness which contributes to delay 
this Utopia of Brotherly Love! ” 

“ Your question is so tersely put,” responded the 
burglar, “ that there can be but one answer and that 
is — the daily press! ” 

There was silence for some moments. Two 
minds were working along somewhat similar lines; 
the broker’s was shooting off at a tangent. Two of 
them were thinking of characters blackened, homes 
and family altars desecrated, friendships severed, 
fortunes overthrown by the malicious lies and mis¬ 
statements of the unbridled press. The broker’s 
thoughts soon took the form of words. 

“ You must have had large experience with the 
papers to know them so well! ” he said, by way of 
a grim joke. 

“ I have had unpleasant relations with the pa¬ 
pers,” quietly returned the burglar, “ in ways you 
would be very far from imagining, and must say 
37 


CLUB PAPERS 

that in the editorial columns, in the news depart¬ 
ments, in the garbled reports, it is one and the same 
vile mess. It seems to me that the daily press en¬ 
genders more ill feeling between capital and labor, 
between rich and poor, between operator and opera¬ 
tive, than any other one outside agency, yes! or than 
all combined.” 

“ Young man,” said the broker with severity, 
u you are as crazy on this topic as on the others you 
have touched. I read the papers and get a vast deal 
of information and benefit from them. Their stock 
reports are invaluable to me, their news items are 
necessary to a knowledge of what is going on in the 
world about us, their literary and religious depart¬ 
ments are replete with interesting matter.” 

“ I must be on track of a new bird,” said the bur¬ 
glar, with a satirical little grin. u Do you mean to 
say that you read the literary and religious matter in 
the daily papers? I had supposed that men of cul¬ 
ture went to periodicals and reviews and technical 
journals for such mental and moral sustenance as 
their libraries or their own experience could not fur¬ 
nish 3 and that no one read the Monday morning 
sermon except the man whose conscience was trou¬ 
bling him over a certain empty pew in his church the 
day before! ” 

“ But the matter is there for those to read who 
cannot afford the reviews,” insisted the broker. 

38 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


It would have been of interest to Mr. Wheattop 
and his wife, especially to the latter, to have known 
of one unpleasant experience this man had had with 
the papers. He had reported their daughter’s 
wedding and had lost his position because of it. He 
had done so well in police and criminal matters for 
the paper on which he was then engaged that the 
managing editor considered him fit to deal with the 
affairs of “ high life.” He had treated this matter 
in a gentlemanly manner altogether devoid of sen¬ 
sationalism and had purposely withheld the copy 
till it was time for the edition to go to press that it 
might not be altered. Mrs. Wheattop, with her fine 
instincts, had appreciated the notice and had gone, 
after some days, to the publication office to thank 
the reporter in person. But he was not there. 
His chief had taken him to task over that very 
article and the reporter had left abruptly. His 
whereabouts were unknown. A gentlemanly treat¬ 
ment of a delicate affair was that man’s crime against 
modern newspaper methods! So it is not to be won¬ 
dered that it was with a slight touch of bitterness 
that he heard the broker defend the press. 

“ Whether the influence of the press be for good 
or for evil,” continued Mr. Wheattop, “ it is hardly 
just to condemn that institution in a wholesale man¬ 
ner, for such as it is the public demands it.” 

“ I must admit that the public furnishes a good 

39 


CLUB PAPERS 

market,” said the burglar, “ but I do not believe the 
public created the demand. In fact I know that the 
newspaper, like all novel ideas, had to struggle for 
a footing and it is only by mixing good with the evil 
that it retains its hold. As to the moral purposes of 
the press we must let that institution determine. 
No paper has advocated a righteous cause but a rival 
sheet has at least attempted to show that it was actu¬ 
ated entirely by selfish or partisan motives, or has 
accused it of falsehood direct. And things have got 
to that pass that when the newsboys yell in my ear 
c The Chicago Liar! for five cents! ’ I instinctively 
ask which one? — and if he does not happen to have 
mine which lies least often — well, I choose the least 
of greater evils — or take none at all.” 

A slow rumble along the side street, coming out 
of nothingness and fading away into the vast still¬ 
ness from which it had emerged, told the trio that 
the engines were returning home. The fire could 
not have been much of an affair — it was so soon 
over that what had probably threatened a great loss 
had died away in a mild excitement! 

“ Sir! Madam! ” said the burglar rising from his 
seat after this last explosion, “ it would be unkind 
to keep you longer in suspense, your wires are cut 
and the police have not heard your call. I am free 
to act as I choose. I have been very pleasantly en- 
40 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


tertained and I may hope that this visit has been not 
without a certain interest to you.” 

He made a quick step toward the desk and deftly 
passed the package of papers from the drawer to his 
pocket. 

“ You will hear from me before many days as to 
when and how you may redeem these papers.” u I 
shall keep the bonds,” he added, as with his most 
polite bow he backed toward the chamber door. A 
groan escaped from the broker’s lips and over his 
wife’s face came such a look of despair that Raymond 
Hope, not the burglar but the man with whom they 
had been conversing, felt instinctively that in the 
minds of these people there must be some grief 
deeper than could be caused by the loss of the ransom 
money. 

“ O God! ” groaned the broker. 

“ My poor daughter! ” sobbed his wife. 

The burglar for the time had vanished and in his 
place stood the reporter and across his brain there 
swept a vision of that fair woman, their daughter, 
whom he had seen but once and then, to love, as she 
was about to become the wife of another. 

“Your daughter?” he said, stopping quickly 
upon the threshold, “ your daughter, what of her? ” 

His tone was so gentle and full of concern that 
Mrs. Wheattop and her pride broke down, and be- 
4i 


CLUB PAPERS 

tween heavy sobs, hardly knowing what she did, she 
told the story of her daughter’s sore trial and the 
certainty of her son’s dishonor. 

Her husband had tried to dam this rushing stream 
of a mother’s woe, but to no purpose. 

“ Madam,” said Hope, as Mrs. Wheattop con¬ 
vulsively finished her recital, “ believe me you have 
not done wrong in thus honoring me with your con¬ 
fidence. Your secret is safe with me — how safe 
you may judge from my actions. This is a painful 
experience to you — it must be to any sensitive soul. 
The moral sense of the community receives a more 
violent shock by the discovery of crime and rotten¬ 
ness where purity is supposed to exist than when the 
crime emanates from confessedly criminal circles. 
That is looking at the question from the point of 
view of your class. But as for me, so far as I can 
discern its workings, the moral tone of the com¬ 
munity is an impalpable affair and not worth taking 
into account in shaping the individual life. I return 
these papers and do not stand in the way of their safe 
delivery. I do not return them to shield crime in 
high places, for fear of the deleterious effect of the 
exposure on public morals — the exposure of hy¬ 
pocrisy in whatever quarter would not grieve me — 
I return them, for I must lose, if to gain however 
greatly to myself is to cause one additional throb in 
a pure woman’s breaking heart.” 

While speaking Hope quietly laid the papers in 
42 


A STRANGE FELLOW 


the drawer from which he had taken them, and 
placed the revolver at their side. 

“ It seems,” he continued, u that the financial 
profit of this visit is to be small to me; and in return 
for what I have missed I am going to ask a favor — 
where I might, perhaps, issue a command. Mr. 
Broker! I wish that at your earliest convenience 
you would send a check for $500.00 to the manage¬ 
ment of the training school for boys, an institution 
which well appreciates the difference between the 
criminal class and the labor class and is trying to 
save from the one into the ranks of the other. And 
then, too, I wish you would donate $500.00 to the 
city missionary society to be used for medical work in 
the slums. These donations are not to go in over 
your name, but over a name I will give you, say — 
Faith Hope. You may supply a third word if you 
choose. When these donations are made I will re¬ 
turn the silver which anxiously awaits me at the door 
below. I have the honor now to bid you a good 
night,” and the burglar left the room. 

Mr. Wheattop’s first impulse was to get the re¬ 
volver, but somehow he got the better of it and lay 
for a few moments quietly in bed. In his superla¬ 
tive j oy at still possessing the papers, the broker as¬ 
sured his wife that he would soon redeem the silver, 
and to this moment she believes that he has acted in 
good faith his part of the programme. 

But between us, one thousand dollars sunk in an 

43 


CLUB PAPERS 

obscure investment which would not reap to him 
even the interest of renown, was not to the broker’s 
taste, and by and by, after an endeavor to put the 
police on track of the missing silver, he calmed his 
conscience by investing one thousand dollars in a 
picture of “ Charity ” in an elaborate gold frame on 
which his name appeared in large black letters as 
“ donor ” and presenting it to the Art Institute. His 
wife, with now and then a tear and many a warm 
feeling toward the frail side of fallen humanity, has 
never failed to remember that night and always 
winds up her line of thought something like this: 

“ He was a strange fellow! a strange fellow! 
There must have been two men in the house that 
night! It was doubtless a noble, true man who sat 
and talked with us — but it was a burglar who took 
the silver! ” 


44 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 





f 

AR-E. YOU NOT Af RAID Of MENTAL DYSPEPSIA IF YOU 
TAKE SUCH HEAVY DIET ON YOUR. PLEASURE TRAM PSl 

4 6 





























THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


I WAS NOT feeling altogether at one with the 
world and this, perhaps, as much as anything 
impelled me to turn my footsteps away from the 
bustle and confusion of my surroundings and to 
tramp onward, aimlessly, through a dreary region 
which lay at one side of the city whither for this 
summer, as for the summer preceding, my labors 
had called me. Now I do not believe to any great 
extent in “ blind fate ” or, in fact, in any fate. I 
would prefer if possible to believe in a well ordered 
system of affairs in this God’s universe 5 but some¬ 
times, when I think over that day’s tramp and to 
what it led, I wonder if any ordered system com¬ 
prehending great suns and planets swinging in their 
orbits and including the transmission of sound and 
heat and force, the creation of light and life, can ex¬ 
tend to the minutest details of so seemingly unim¬ 
portant a life as mine. 

I shall not try to place the responsibility — thank 
Heaven it is not mine to settle such questions — but 
I have wondered why I pushed my way among those 
shadeless sand hills when I knew that to the east and 
47 


CLUB PAPERS 

south of the city, along a sparkling water course with 
level, winding banks, stretched mile upon mile of 
fruit and flower gardens, fragrant groves and grassy 
openings which reached far back from the mossy 
river banks. I knew very well the charm of that 
locality for in more satisfied mood I had wandered 
often in and out among the shady lanes, and often 
of a warm summer’s day I had bathed my tired 
limbs in the secluded depths where a certain clump 
of willows and beeches cast dark shadows on the sur¬ 
face of the silver stream. I must here do myself the 
justice to say that my mood on this particular day 
was not of illtemper or of dissatisfaction; it was the 
craving mood of the unsatisfied. What a world of 
difference there is between those words. May 
Heaven have mercy on the dissatisfied soul. May 
Heaven help the unsatisfied to clearer light and 
broader truth, for by him alone are supreme heights 
attainable. 

For hours I trod the treeless waste, holding com¬ 
munion with my inner self and carrying my bundle 
of yearnings. Of course I carried more substantial 
baggage for I am too good a traveler to venture out 
into a strange and especially into so uninviting a sec¬ 
tion of country without my lunch and flask and one 
or two companionable books. 

It was well on in the afternoon — I had set out in 
the early morning —that I came to a realizing 
48 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


sense of my distance from the city by a tired feeling 
strongly manifested in head and feet, and I must 
say that I did not relish the prospect of a return 
tramp that night. The country had become more 
hilly, some coarse brown grasses and weeds had 
spread patches of carpet here and there over the 
parched sand. Farther on the hills were higher and 
the carpet of grasses seemed more broadly spread 
and of finer texture, while I could see even at a dis¬ 
tance that nature had woven flower patterns in soft 
colors into the body of dull green and brown. 

I began to greet these grasses and banks of color 
in much the same spirit in which Columbus must 
have welcomed the floating landgrass and driftwood 
as he neared the golden strand of his new world. 
There may have been a slight dilference, for I had 
not set out on a voyage of discovery; yet neverthe¬ 
less I was soon to set foot on the borderland of a new 
world — a new life — and to learn of new possibili¬ 
ties of which I had never even dreamed. 

Descending by a gentle slope into a valley, to my 
gratification and slight surprise I came upon a fairly 
well worn path. Into this I turned my steps and 
followed its windings for some distance as it wove 
in and out among patches of sunlight and shade, for 
it led now through a wooded country sweet with the 
perfume of plant and flower, where a laughing 
woodland stream sparkled between the trees and so 
49 


CLUB PAPERS 

touched me with a sense of delight that more than 
once I stopped to hear its tinkling and singing as it 
skirted rocks and rippled over pebbles, under fern 
and brake and hanging branch, till, suddenly emerg¬ 
ing from a deep shade I rested my eyes on one of the 
loveliest scenes God and man, working in perfect 
harmony, ever produced. 

The spot to which the path had led me was on a 
slight eminence overlooking a little valley carpeted 
with living green and hemmed in and sheltered on 
all sides by a dense growth of trees. The sun, just 
before me, was sinking into a most gorgeous bed of 
crimson and gold, while over him was suspended a 
fleecy canopy worked by the angels of the light in 
rarest tints of green and blue, orange and Vermillion, 
while athwart them all the brilliant monarch shot 
radiating lines of purest gold which, weaving all the 
colors into one grand harmony, pierced beyond into 
the transparent blue of the dome overhead. 

Below my feet lay at rest two little lakes, blue and 
transparent, and as deep as the heavens were high 
above them. Beyond them, nestled in the purple 
shadows of the forest trees, stretched a long low 
house with its out-buildings whose red roofs and 
chimneys were touched here and there with the mel¬ 
low sunlight which, drifting over treetops and sift¬ 
ing through the leaves, bathed the lower part of the 
picture in its soft radiance. Through an open win- 
50 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


dow of the house floated strains from some musical 
instrument, and a voice was heard, tender and sweet, 
I knew, for I could just distinguish it at that distance. 

A feeling of perfect contentment and satisfaction 
stole over me and it was some time before I could 
break the spell and make up my mind to go to the 
door and inquire the way to some tavern where I 
might pass the night for I felt sure that at no great 
distance there must be some small hamlet which 
could boast its genial wayside inn. 

I was met at the door by a pleasant faced old black 
“ mammy ” who evidently was not in the habit of 
admitting early evening or indeed any other callers. 
In response to my question she spoke to someone 
within and in a moment an elderly gentleman stood 
before me. He did not seem to glance at me keenly, 
still I felt glad that I had nothing to conceal. 

I never saw just such another face. It was full of 
strong manhood though the lines were soft. The 
eyes were calm and clear, almost penetrating, and 
an intense passion lurked in the corners of the lids. 
The nose was straight, the nostrils sensitive and the 
mouth, which was shaded by a drooping moustache, 
was firm and gentle. His whole bearing spoke of 
mental and physical activity and a life of calm re¬ 
straint. 

We did not stand in silence while each took men¬ 
tal note of the other, for I had soon made my wants 
5i 


CLUB PAPERS 

known and he had answered with slight delay. “ I 
fear,” he said with a kindly smile, “ you will have 
some little distance to travel before you find a more 
comfortable bed than I can place at your disposal, 
if you are willing to accept. I can hardly offer my 
guests the social entertainment of the inn. How¬ 
ever, if you care to share our simple meal, you will 
be welcome.” Is there wonder that I was too sur¬ 
prised and delighted with this piece of seeming good 
fortune to express my thanks in words? However, 
I did not need to do that for he read my eyes and 
noting the dusty condition to which my tramp had 
brought me, said, as he led me across the hall, 
“ There is the toilet room 5 and there are wanting 
some moments of supper time.” 

When I came out much refreshed into the broad 
hall, the evening shades were so deeply gathered 
that the light of the room was quite dim; but at the 
farther end reclining in a deep window seat I saw 
my host and a graceful young woman. As I came 
forward, they arose together and my host advanced 
saying, u Do not think we give you a cold welcome 
because we do not light the lamps. My daughter 
and I love the twilight hour and try to keep its gentle 
light unbroken.” At his word, “ my daughter,” I 
bowed and she responded with a slight inclination 
of the head. This was our introduction. I could not 
distinguish the lines of her face, but her figure as it 
52 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


showed in silhouette against the gray light of the 
window was simply perfection; and at that first 
movement of her head the blood surged to my 
temples. While her father and I were conversing 
she retired from the room. 

I took from my pocket the books which hung 
rather heavily at my side and deposited them on the 
window sill. The keen eyes of my host were at¬ 
tracted to one of these and with a, “ May I,” he took 
it up. He turned the leaves noting here and there 
marked passages, and said quietly with a pleased 
look, “ We may be entertaining an angel, etc., etc.” 
Before I could respond otherwise than by a ques¬ 
tioning glance, his daughter appeared and said in the 
gentlest voice I ever heard, “ Father, our supper is 
ready j ” and he led the way to the door. I went in 
to see her standing in the soft light which the elec¬ 
tric lamp shed down from a panel in the ceiling of 
the room. 

What can I say of her as she stood there in a grace¬ 
ful gown of soft white stuff with her calm, upturned 
face? My sensation on the first view of their home 
was repeated intensified. As the little lakes so calm 
and tranquil in the peaceful landscape had reflected 
to my eye the azure sky above, so did her blue eyes 
reflect the gathered light of heaven from the depths 
of her pure soul. And her hair! It seemed as if 
the sunlight had dashed up a spray against her white 
53 


CLUB PAPERS 

forehead and, rippling back, kept falling in cascades 
of gold over the warm tints of her perfect neck and 
shoulders. When she moved it was as though with 
effort to keep her feet on the ground; so much she 
seemed a creature of clearer light and higher realms. 

The conversation at the supper-table ran in pleas¬ 
ant channels. I hardly know if I did my share for I 
cannot use my eyes and lips to advantage at one and 
the same time and my eyes had all they could attend 
to. During the talk the father said to me, “ The 
work which attracted my notice as you took the books 
from your pocket used to give me great satisfaction 
when I was a young student of these matters. Some 
of the marked passages seemed to indicate a certain 
appreciation on the reader’s part that brought me 
into sympathy with him at once. — Hence my little 
pleasantry as to £ angels, etc., etc.,’ ” he added with 
a smile. “ We entertain few c angels,’ as my daugh¬ 
ter and I are pleased to denominate kindred spirits.” 

“ What book is it, father? ” asked the daughter 
and then added with a little wayward manner which 
charmed me to the quick, “ Perhaps I do not care to 
be counted one of your band of angels.” 

“ It is a volume of selections from De Vert,” he 
said, “ and the particular selection to which I refer 
is the essay on c Old Truths Under New Lights.’ ” 
“ Indeed,” she responded, and with so evident 
comprehension and appreciation that I wondered if 
54 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


the mere girl she seemed could have puzzled her 
head with abstruse problems of philosophical specu¬ 
lation. 

u Are you not afraid of mental dyspepsia if you 
take such heavy diet on your pleasure tramps? ” she 
asked with a quizzical look in her eyes. At least that 
was the way I read their expression and answered 
in that vein: 

“ Perhaps I do not go as deeply into the thought 
at those times as I might,” I said, u for I keep my 
eyes open to whatever of beauty may lie around me. 
You may be sure my eyes drink their fill of the love¬ 
liness which is set before them.” She must have 
noticed that they did for the faint flush which came 
into her face told me plainly that she read my deeper 
meaning and I would best confine my conversation 
in conventional channels. So I continued: “ But I 
do enjoy the book for the wonderful amount of sug¬ 
gestion it contains.” 

“ It was always full of suggestion to me,” said 
her father after a short lull. “ Not perhaps in the 
line the author might have expected, but still full of 
suggestion j and I owe the author a great debt. His 
idea of spiritual truth always in some subtle manner 
suggested to my mind a parallel idea of physical 
light. How strangely these two words are bound 
together, and have been, ever since humanity began 
to seek after a higher life — and that you know was 
55 


CLUB PAPERS 

.early in the history of the race. Probably at first it 
was a poetical form of expression, this use of light 
for truth. At first the poetic seeker after God cried 
for light. He wanted truth. And now the unpoetic 
scientist seeks for light — he wants truth. They 
both are struggling toward the same goal; and fren¬ 
zied poet and stern logician express their desires in 
the same word — light. Give us light. Is there 
not, then, some subtle, vital force in the light their 
physical eyes know to suggest to the mind’s eye and 
to the eye of faith this same expression for ultimate 
truth — the light? It seemed so to me.” Then the 
conversation turned on general topics till the conclu¬ 
sion of the meal. 

“ Will you sit with us a little while? ” said my 
host when, after our cigars in the porch, we returned 
to the dining room. “We use this room for our 
general living room and, as you may have observed, 
our comforts and conveniences are near at hand.” 

I had noticed that the room contained much richly 
carved furniture and one or two antique cabinets. 
On shelves which ran around the room, which was 
paneled to the frieze in English oak, were displayed 
rare pieces of china and glass and decorated ware. 
A violin rested in its case by the music stand, while 
a piano against which a guitar was leaning stood at 
the farther end of the room. The pictures, which 
56 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


were few, were chosen with fine taste. Along the 
lower shelves of the built-in cases were well 
thumbed volumes of the poets in proximity to the 
popular monthlies; and there were foreign and do¬ 
mestic scientific journals, with cut leaves, which evi¬ 
dently had been read. 

My host had taken up a book with the sign that 
I was to make myself comfortable ; and his daughter 
had arranged some unfinished fancy work in her lap 
where the light would best fall upon it. After a 
while the father closed his book, and I spoke to him 
of the perfect appointments of the house, so far as 
I had observed, especially in the matter of electric 
lighting which one would hardly expect to find car¬ 
ried to that state of completeness in a house so re¬ 
mote from mechanical centers. The panel lamp was 
no longer burning when we came in but side lamps 
filled the room with a gentle glow. 

“ Where do you get the power? ” I asked. “ I 
noticed no engine house as I came to the door.” 

“ There is no engine house or steam plant,” he 
answered, “ for we make the water do the work after 
it has taken a rest in the little lakes.” 

“ I wondered why those lakes looked so con¬ 
tented,” said I. “ Is it because they are conscious 
of doing work in the world? ” 

“ Well, I hardly know about that,” he answered, 

57 


CLUB PAPERS 

“ but it may be because it has done its work that our 
brook goes, like a school boy released from his tasks, 
laughing and dancing down the valley.” 

“ What a musical little stream that is,” said I. 
a I saw it sparkle among the trees and stopped to 
hear its tinkling and singing as I came along the 
valley path.” 

“ You noticed our brook,” said the daughter, look¬ 
ing up from her work. “ Why, how charming of 
you. We take great delight in the little stream; we 
have studied its songs. Would you like to see it 
sparkle and hear it sing, here, now? ” 

“ Most certainly,” I answered with perhaps a 
tone of amusement in my voice, for my idea of what 
she had in mind was somewhat misty and the mist 
was not altogether cleared away by her next words. 

“ No,” she continued with much earnestness, “ I 
am not trifling. Now God’s truth — which we were 
discussing at the supper-table — if it can touch to 
harmony the heart chords and stir to music the soul 
of him who by deep study and contemplation has 
come to realize something of its power and beauty 
— and it can — may not His light be found as 
potent in its way when one has come to learn some¬ 
thing of the vital force it holds? ” 

She disposed of her fancy work and taking down 
a broad shallow case from a cabinet shelf placed it 
on the stand near which the violin was resting. It 
58 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


was evidently some new or strange musical instru¬ 
ment with a sounding board over which were strung 
in a peculiar manner many fine chords, some so fine 
indeed that they seemed to be woven of spider web. 
On the stand which was designed especially to hold 
this instrument (and others of a similar nature as I 
learned afterwards) was an arm which held an elec¬ 
tric lamp and a system of lenses, clear and colored. 
To this lamp she attached a wire from a wall switch, 
focused the lenses and, shutting off the light from 
the room, turned the current into the wire. 

The effect was most marvelous and weird, for 
suddenly the room seemed filled with the pulsation 
of sweetest sounds which ebbed and flowed in rarest 
harmony. Sounds they were of nature 5 the bab¬ 
bling of brooks, the whisper of leaves and grasses, 
the whistle and song of birds; and through it all a 
chime as of distant bells as their clear tones flow 
down a valley of a peaceful Sunday morning. 
Where was I ? I put out my hand to feel my chair 
from which I had involuntarily risen, when sud¬ 
denly the music ceased and the lamps in the room 
were aglow. 

u There is vital force in light, is there not? ” said 
the father quietly. 

I held my peace for the daughter was arranging a 
sort of keyboard near the instrument. 

“ Perhaps we can gather some of these sweet 

59 


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flowers of sound,” she said, “ and weave them into a 
garland j” and, having refocused the lenses and 
deftly changed the stringing, she darkened the room 
again and directed the current to the instrument. 

In the dim light, which was diffused like a faint 
halo, I could see her white hands wandering over the 
keys but her face was lost in the darkness. Strains 
from the “ Spring Song ” were swelling. I never 
knew what it meant till then; and then, too, I felt 
that I knew how the composer’s imagination was 
fired and how passionately his heart strove to catch 
and crystallize the song which ran riot in his brain. 

Other selections followed, all of the mystic order; 
snatches from the symphonies translating nature’s 
gentler and more joyous moods — songs without 
words. Why attempt to describe them. What are 
words? If songs can be sung without them are they 
necessary to the closer communion of mind and 
heart? We three sat for some moments absorbed in 
a silence which I was the first to break, and then only 
to wish them good night and pleasant dreams. 

In spite of the new and intense sensations which 
had been awakened in my breast, I had not long to 
wait before I was wrapped in slumber; and the early 
morning sun was peering into my window when I 
opened my eyes again to the world. I gave it only 
a glance of recognition and lay quietly in bed to 
collect my thoughts. Was last evening a dream? 
60 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


Was her face on earth? and what of him? And then 
another question came to me, dimly at first, then ap¬ 
pealing with greater and still greater force. I was 
tired after my long tramp and perhaps a trifle be¬ 
wildered ; he was so entertaining and she so beauti¬ 
ful that I did not give heed to what was set before 
me at supper, nor could I recall how the table was 
spread. The repast was simple I knew, white bread, 
a sip of wine — was there meat? Yes, there was 
cold meat and a dish of honey. That was all I could 
remember; yet as I recalled my sensations it seemed 
as if I had arisen last evening from the most deli¬ 
cate feast that ever tempted mortal appetite. Then, 
as I thought further, I remembered that the table 
was laid in a quaint, dainty fashion. The dishes 
were arranged near the edge, leaving a panel of 
snow white linen in the center and this panel was 
framed by sprays of running vines and plants, and 
delicately colored wild flowers showed their fresh 
faces in the rich green of the leaves. I remembered, 
too, that the light from the lamp in the ceiling 
played in soft colors on the white panel of cloth and 
I would have been more strongly attracted by this 
exquisite effect had not her face been in full view 
just across the table. I finally attributed it all to the 
grace of her presence — but why did it linger now 
that she was not with me? For about two minutes 
I made a vain attempt to free myself from the spell 
61 


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of her face and voice and form. How useless it 
was; for, as the faint breath of the newborn day 
bore to my ears the morning songs of the wood, the 
twitter of birds, and the heart throbs of awakened 
flowers, the wonderful mystic music of the last eve¬ 
ning thrilled me through and through and I was a 
slave to my fancies. 

I arose, dressed and descended to the large hall. 
The front door was standing open and I stepped out 
to take a few hasty strides to start my blood. I 
viewed the house from a little distance and in closer 
detail. It was a simple structure with broad-seated 
latticed windows. The walls were of blue-gray 
stone lightened up here and there with bands of 
brown and buff. Quaint dormers gave light and 
air to the chambers in the roof which let its broad 
spreading eaves come close down to the first story 
window-tops. Mosses clung to the joints, while 
roses and woodbine and ivy clambered up the walls 
and out to the edge of the eaves where the more 
timorous climbers, which dared not attempt the as¬ 
cent of the roof, dropped back gracefully toward the 
earth. There was a portion of the house whose use 
I could not determine to my satisfaction from the 
outside. Afterward I found this to be the father’s 
laboratory and studio. As I turned toward the door 
I saw my host coming to invite me to breakfast. 

The morning sun kissed the violets, stopped to 
62 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


play with the roses and geraniums in the window 
boxes and then came in through the opened lattice 
to light the room for the morning meal. The soft 
flickering sunshine reminded me of the evening light 
and when I looked up to where it was I saw that the 
panel was closed and the lamp was gone. The mo¬ 
ments passed happily though I confess to feeling 
some little pain at the thought that I might never 
sit in their company again. However, that pain 
vanished when, as I stood on the doorstep shortly 
after, about to take my leave, the father expressed 
the hope that at some time I would visit with them 
again. 

Need I say that as frequently as my duties would 
permit I visited that house? A warm friendship 
sprang up between the elderly man and myself. On 
one of my earlier visits he took me into the labora¬ 
tory and, while showing me some of his instruments 
used in physical research, dropped fragments of his 
life’s history. Later on he took me into his con¬ 
fidence in the matter of certain of his studies and ex¬ 
periments. His was indeed a rare nature. I had 
never imagined possible such a combination of the 
scientific mind and artist heart. 

In his earlier years, then, as now, an earnest seeker 
after truth, he had for his companion a wife who 
was in every way fitted to aid him. They were just 
on the verge of contentment, it seemed to them, 

63 


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when his wife left him and took with her the new¬ 
born son. The blow was terrible, I imagine, to one 
of his supersensitive nature, and for hours he lay on 
his face in the darkened chamber clutching at the 
shroud as if to keep them back. It was so stricken 
that his little sunny-haired daughter found him and 
touching him softly on the shoulder said, “ Papa 
come out into the light. Take me.” 

a How could I,” he said to me once in speaking 
of that time, “ how could I have forgotten that little 
angel. Since then we have lived each for the other 
and she has been for me the embodiment of light.” 

And indeed I loved her so intensely that I could 
see how this object of his worship and adoration 
into whose heart he had poured all the love of his 
own strong nature, and into whose mind and around 
whose body he had thrown all the well ordered in¬ 
fluences of his own powerful mental and physical 
life, should at last reflect itself in him and inspire 
him to lines of thought and activity beyond the 
grasp of natures less pure and strong than his. 

One morning we were talking over a recently 
published theory of a certain so-called scientist 
which struck us as very narrow in its perception and 
treatment of a broad subject. 

“ O, these people,” he exclaimed, “ with their 
c isms 5 and c ologies ’ and ‘ ences ’ who build a whole 
world on the little grain of truth they have found 

64 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


and then keep it so near their eyes that it obscures 
the great universe of truth which envelops them. 
In their minds they are right and everyone else is 
wrong! Why will not one soul add its grain of truth 
to that which another holds and so on, till all hu¬ 
manity is touched. Then we can all stand on the 
outside of a great sphere of truth with a clearer view 
of the universe of light which is above, below and 
all around us. Sometimes these scientists, in com¬ 
mon with other seekers after truth, seem to me like 
lightning rods. If they really have gone deep 
enough to touch a fountain of living water, when 
the real truth, passing over, presses upon them, they 
let their surcharged spirits flow out toward the great 
spirit. If they have not gone deeply, have touched 
the surface of things only, they make just as much 
of a show in the world, but in the attempt to c draw 
the lightning 5 — to bring down great truth and to 
fit it to their caliber — they are generally left black¬ 
ened and distorted wires and the object they would 
have protected is destroyed. It were better, were it 
not, to let the soul flow out to God than to try to fit 
God into the chamber of an undeveloped soul? I 
think so. But in the matter of purely physical ex¬ 
periment, for years now I have been doing and the 
time is still far away when I shall be able to formu¬ 
late tenable theories or understand so simple a 
manifestation of truth as light.” 

65 


CLUB PAPERS 

“ But I have done something,” he added with a 
smile in which there was a suggestion of pardonable 
pride. 

“ Yes,” I said, “ that wonderful instrument 
played upon by the light, which so carried me away 
the first time I heard it and still affects me greatly, 
would seem to tell something of what you had ac¬ 
complished.” 

“ That is very simple,” he responded, “ very 
simple compared with another instrument I have 
just recently brought to a point bordering on com¬ 
pletion. I believe you have been affected by it 
though so subtle is it in its operation that you have 
hardly noticed it.” 

“ What can you mean? ” I asked in surprise. 

“ It has been a secret between two persons up to 
this moment,” he said seriously 5 and added with a 
smile, “ I believe it goes into safe hands.” 

He beckoned me to an alcove off the laboratory 
which he used as a dark room for experiments 
with light. At his bidding I seated myself at a 
table, and we were in silence for some moments 
while he arranged a small white screen directly be¬ 
fore me. Having connected an instrument, which 
was a bulk in the darkness of the room, with a small 
dynamo, he took his seat at my side saying: “ We 
will experiment.” 


66 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


“ Oh! ” I exclaimed with surprised excitement 
as a prophetic idea flashed upon me, “ I shall know 
the mystery of the panel lamp.” 

“ That was a mild form of it,” he replied with an 
assenting nod which I could see for, as he had 
touched a key, the room was now light enough to 
make objects fairly distinct. 

“ I do not want to leave it entirely to your im¬ 
agination,” he said, as he handed me a piece of white 
bread. a Eat this and tell me what you taste.” And 
the colored lights began to play upon the screen. 

“ I could swear that I am eating roast duck! ” I 
exclaimed. 

“ I will not ask you to swear,” he said, “ for your 
brain in its present excited condition probably does 
not receive as truth the evidence of certain senses.” 

“ But I am perfectly calm and cool,” I affirmed, 
tc my brain is not excited.” 

“ Yes, it is,” he said quietly. 

“ By what? ” I asked, but the truth was beginning 
to dawn upon me. 

“ By the lights on that screen. They are carry¬ 
ing the same sensations to your brain through your 
eyes that are carried there by your nerves of taste 
when you eat roast duck. The same sensation would 
exist if there were nothing in your mouth. But the 
piece of bread makes it seem more real, perhaps, as 
67 


CLUB PAPERS 

that taste is connected in your mind with a solid sub¬ 
stance. Now, what are you drinking? ” and sud¬ 
denly the combination of lights was changed. 

“ It is Burgundy,” I said almost stupidly, for I 
could not believe my senses, “ I am drinking Bur¬ 
gundy and I have not even a glass in my hand.” 

With his daughter’s aid he had worked all this 
out to a point of absolute perfection and so it had 
come to him by degrees. I was the first to taste its 
ripe fruits; and the revelation was almost more than 
my excited nerves could bear. He noticed how it 
was affecting me and, throwing off the lights, raised 
the slide of the darkened window. 

We conversed quietly for a few moments on other 
subj ects and then returned to the instrument. Upon 
examination I found it to be a very simple affair 
when once understood, as all great things are. It 
was only a delicate arrangement of prisms and 
lenses, so disposed that by operating a cylinder the 
prismatic colors could be combined, intensified or 
modified at the will of the operator. Where the 
great achievement lay was in selecting the colors 
which should produce certain definite and desired 
effects. 

All this he explained to me in a general way; for 
I was not a sufficiently advanced student of the or¬ 
ganisms of the human body fully to comprehend a 
more technical explanation: The sense of sight, be- 
68 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


sides being incomparably the finest of the individual 
senses, really comprehends them all so that the vivid 
image of an object with all its special attributes of 
form, feeling, etc., can be presented to the brain 
through the medium of the eye when we come to 
know the combination of colors necessary to produce 
the various effects 5 that is, to send the sensations of 
touch, hearing, smell and taste through the nerve 
centers of the eye to the brain. The specialization of 
the organism is feeblest in smell and taste and the 
color combinations of these senses he had determined 
to a high degree of accuracy. As yet, the appli¬ 
cation to the senses of touch and hearing lay beyond 
his achievement but not beyond his hopes. He re¬ 
garded the work of Schwann and Schultz as authori¬ 
tative, so far as it went, on the subject of ganglia or 
nerve centers; but, of course, they had not touched 
the borderland of the new science, and even Ranvier 
and the French School had not dreamed of it. 
Hence he was alone in his work, which up to that 
time had to be carried on by experiment mainly, for 
as yet no empirical rules could be laid down. How¬ 
ever, he was so well grounded in the study of phys¬ 
ics, chemistry, physiology and histology that no 
difficulty seemed too great to be encountered and 
overthrown, so that he had succeeded in obtaining 
many precise formulae and in making a subtle analy¬ 
sis of the special sense of taste! 

69 


CLUB PAPERS 

I may say, by the way, that he explained to me 
that I had not detected the power of light to create 
the sensation of taste since when the instrument had 
been in operation in the panel of the dining room 
ceiling, he had permitted only a suggestion of vari¬ 
ous dainty flavors to play in light upon the white 
panel of the cloth. I mention this rather to show the 
extreme perfection of the instrument in his hands 
than to excuse my dullness in not discovering some 
occult power in the changing lights. 

As to that musical instrument to which I had lis¬ 
tened many times since the occasion of my first visit, 
it was merely a mechanical contrivance of great 
delicacy, over the strings of which the lights played 
very much as the soft zephyrs play across the strings 
of the Aeolian harp. Of course it was a matter of 
some skill and study to arrange the instrument so as 
to produce desired tones and harmonies, as was ef¬ 
fected when the daughter connected the keyboard. 
But this too was simple when one saw it! And all 
came about so naturally for, as the father told me, 
the whole scheme occurred to him one day while 
watching the blade of the radiometer revolving in 
the sunshine. If the light could make the blade re¬ 
volve why could it not make strings to vibrate? and 
the result of his work was a complete demonstration 
that it could. 

But in the matter of affecting the brain with the 
70 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


sensation of taste, the study had been carried with 
successful results to a point far beyond what the 
father had shown to me. (Thank Heaven, I may 
remark parenthetically.) One day chance gave him 
an opportunity to test in an extreme degree the 
power of this sublime force in light 5 and then for 
the first time its power for evil struck with full force 
upon him, and I can hardly think of it now without 
a shudder. 

A strange dog found its way into the valley and 
acted in so peculiar a manner that our suspicions 
were aroused. We were fortunate in getting it into 
a small pen where soon it exhibited symptoms of 
genuine rabies. The rage and suffering of the brute 
became intense 3 and as we knew of nothing which 
would furnish relief, the father decided to try an 
experiment. We brought out the instrument which 
had given us so many sensations of delightful taste 
and focused it on a screen which we placed at the 
side of the cage. The sun, which was shining with 
heated glare, gave us the light we now used. We 
who were watching protected our eyes with strongly 
colored glasses and even then, as the light played 
upon the screen, we experienced a sickening sensa¬ 
tion, and it could not have been many moments be¬ 
fore the brute lay dead in the pen. 

As I said, now for the first time the awful capabil¬ 
ity for undetectable crime burst on the man and he 
7i 


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was overcome with the thought that he had dis¬ 
covered and now held in trust, as it were, for hu¬ 
manity this great power for good or evil. 

“ O, God! ” he cried, “ how can I give this to a 
world which is not ready to receive it? to a world 
where man is selfish, where each cares more for his 
own advancement than for the good of others! Is 
it safe with me even, who this day in an act of mercy 
have demonstrated its awful power! ” 

We all turned away deeply moved and with sober 
faces. I forbore to ask questions; but with the 
father’s consent I took the intestine of the brute to 
a noted chemist in the city and he told me, after 
some days, that the animal had evidently died of 
arsenical poisoning, though the microscope did not 
reveal an atom of the poison. For days I could not 
shake off the depressing effect of this last exposition 
of power and kept saying to myself, “ Oh Heaven! 
what an engine of misery this would be in the hands 
of a man who had power over light and who knew 
not truth and love! ” “ But could that be? ” I 

would ask myself. “ Could a man gain power over 
God’s great forces who had not the love of God in 
his heart? ” 

During that rich summer I hastened many times 
across the sandy waste to let my eyes rest on the quiet 
peacefulness of that low house nestled in the cool 
shade beyond the placid lakes. The vivid impres- 
72 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


sions of my first visit never dimmed; but the feeling 
of supernal contentment, of complete satisfaction, 
grew ever stronger. You may be sure I never rested 
long to view the scene from a distance, but hurried 
to the door to receive the glad welcome which is ac¬ 
corded a friend one trusts, who has come to know 
one’s dearest secrets. There was always the hearty 
hand clasp of the father, who after so many years of 
secluded working was glad to find an appreciative 
young mind into which to pour the riches of the past 
and the hopes of the future. There was the smile 
of welcome from the beautiful woman, who always 
would greet kindly one whom her father trusted 
with thoughts about his life’s work. The frankness 
and simplicity of her greeting did not change from 
the first, so I could not say if she even dreamed of 
my devouring passion. Now and then, too, a guilty 
feeling would creep in to accuse me of a betrayal of 
trust. Was it a regard for her father and an interest 
in the future of his work which urged on my visits? 
Somewhat, yes! But there were stronger motives. 
I came to bask in the sunshine of her face, to drink 
in the rhythmic cadence of her voice, and with half 
shut eyes to float away in a dream trance as my soul 
swayed in the exquisite poetry of her motion. 

But the day came too soon when duty called me 
to a distant land and on that day I sought her father, 
for I could not bear to add his condemnation of be- 
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trayer of trust to my own guilty conscience. As 
simply as I could I told him that I had loved his 
daughter from the very first. He raised his hand 
and resting it gently on my shoulder said, u I have 
known it almost as long as you have. I saw, too, 
that you would try in every honorable way to win 
her, and I was glad that from the first my heart 
could go out to you as a father’s to a son. I have 
sometimes hoped I was mistaken, but that hope was 
born of a selfish wish for I would not know how to 
give her up. I give you my consent to woo her, I 
don’t know that I give you a wish to win her! ” 

I sought her and found her reading in the porch. 
I opened my heart. There was a serious, almost sad 
smile on her lips as she responded in calm tones: u I 
have come to care for you very much during this 
summer, but not in that way! I could not bind you 
— No, I could not let you bind yourself. You are 
under the spell of this enchanting, this almost en¬ 
chanted life. Would you think me worthy or beauti¬ 
ful out among the women of the world? Do I not 
need my setting of lovely nature, my rare flowers 
and ” — this slowly — cc the wonderful light which 
has shone on us in so many mysterious ways? ” 
Then with a brighter look and a laughing voice, 
“ Why, you have not seen me in perspective, and the 
only woman you have ever seen at my side to com¬ 
pare me with is the dear, good old black nurse of 
my childhood! ” 


74 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


It was not safe to be serious with her when that 
tone was in her voice; and so I only put both my 
hands on her head and bending over her drew one 
long sweet kiss from her pure forehead! I saw the 
spot my lips had touched turn white and then glow 
with a faint flame. How vividly this came back to 
me in the following years, for before my lips had 
touched her again a lightning courier of the storm 
kissed her and as long as she lives the faint flame will 
glow on her white forehead! 

I will not speak of the letters that passed between 
us during the year I was abroad, other than to say 
that hers reflected in every word her beautiful spirit, 
and into its depths I could look more closely than 
when I had been with her. My distance from her 
dispelled one vicious, haunting thought which gave 
me many a sleepless night, and flashed around me for 
a time as I recalled her words in the porch, “ And the 
wonderful light which has shone on us in so many 
mysterious ways! ” Was there power then in physi¬ 
cal light to create love? and had he — but at the 
thought I became wild. I learned then and I have 
never forgotten the lesson, that the light of love 
glows in the heart and external sunshine cannot add 
to it and storm and darkness round about cannot 
dispel it. 

I shall speak of but one more visit to that earthly 
paradise and that the first one on my return home. 
The air was laden with an intense sultriness which 
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was so oppressive that I could hardly keep my seat 
in the saddle as I followed again my way across the 
sand hills and up the valley path. The little stream 
was not singing that day but, showing now and then 
with a sullen light from which all sparkle was gone, 
it fell back with a sob and a moan. The trees swayed 
with sorrowful whispering and the flowers on life¬ 
less stems drooped to earth. 

As I emerged from the wood and gazed on their 
home how changed was the scene from the first day! 
All the calm and peacefulness were there in the little 
valley; but a frightful doom seemed to impend. 
Now the sun was hidden, and in the western sky lay 
great dark banks of clouds on which the gleam of 
lightning played at short intervals. I had never 
seen the heavens present so threatening an aspect, 
and after putting out my horse I sought the house 
with a sense of relief. The father met me at the 
door. His daughter had been overcome with the 
oppressive heat and had retired for a short time to 
her chamber. 

Now the wind began to rise in fitful gusts; and, 
although neither hand was beyond the first quarter 
post on the dial of the tall clock, a darkness as of 
night was falling upon the landscape. The rolling 
thunder crept up steadily and rapidly from the black 
west and vivid flashes of lightning in chain and sheet 
swept over the tumbling clouds. The rooms were 
7 <$ 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


filled with weird sounds from the delicate instru¬ 
ments as the piercing light, forcing its way under the 
closed covers of the cases swept the sensitive chords. 
The rain fell in torrents, shutting the range of vision 
within the walls of the house. In the midst of a lull, 
bolt upon bolt of lightning fell and crash upon crash 
of thunder followed until it seemed that the roof of 
the house must give in and fall before the warring 
elements. 

Just then his daughter, my love, came into the 
room faint, almost falling. I caught her in my arms 
and was about to put my lips to her forehead when, 
with a crash that rocked the foundations of the house, 
a blinding light came between us and we sank to the 
floor! I did not lose consciousness, although I was 
stunned and as she lay there in my embrace, seeming 
lifeless, I saw the flame playing about her forehead 
where I would have kissed her, where I did kiss her 
that day in the porch. For some time she was be¬ 
yond our aid. We feared beyond recall. The storm 
abated and as she came back to strength, sunshine 
played upon the peaceful landscape; and in the 
eastern sky fragments of black clouds and irregular 
flashes of light, hangers on of the grand cloud army, 
were skulking away from the work of havoc that had 
been wrought. 

For there was desolation in one part of the house, 
the laboratory. There the lightning had played 
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with the delicate electrical instruments, ruining 
some of them absolutely. In one corner, smoulder¬ 
ing on the brick floor, were the charred remains of a 
cabinet which held many note books and all the for¬ 
mulae he had been so long in perfecting. I cannot 
describe her father’s look of anguish, as he laid eyes 
on this precious wreck. Then suddenly his attitude 
and expression changed. “ It was all for the best,” 
I heard him say, and then he turned toward us with 
a calm, almost smiling face. 

We were not long in repairing the damage to the 
house where we continued to pass many happy days; 
and the landscape was changing her golden autumn 
dress for one of sombre brown for winter wear, when 
I took my wife and her father with me to the city. 
In spite of his seeming calm and contentment, this 
sudden ending of his life’s cherished work told 
heavily on him and he was glad when he was called 
away. 

We often talk of her father, my wife and I — of 
his subtle intellect, his pure heart, his total indiffer¬ 
ence to worldly gain or applause; of his gentleness 
and kindliness and, above all, of his hopes to give 
the world the results of his study of the light — 
hopes which the light itself had so wantonly broken. 

We have that musical instrument now; and, as 
my wife brings out its sweet harmonies, I dream of 
her father. “ Oh! ” I say to myself, a you away 
78 


THE MYSTERY OF THE LIGHT 


from sordid strife and low, unhuman toil for gain 

— you lived with the masters in your study of the 
light, with the masters of painting and music and 
poetry. What heavenly manna was the light to 
them! What need of grosser human food had 
Angelo in those days of spiritual and mental activity 
on the scaffold of the Sistine Chapel, when the light 
flowed through his hand in flames of living color! 
What need of coarser food can touch the poet’s thirst 
when the celestial light of some great truth is glow¬ 
ing in his heart to fill the unsatisfied craving of 
countless kindred souls! And the great composer 

— does he not quaff the nectar of the gods when 
heaven’s sweet light sweeping across the tense chords 
of his brain makes them to throb with divinest har¬ 
monies, while, forgetful of earthly food and rest, he 
catches the musical mist and holds it in his mind till 
it is distilled in crystal drops and becomes food and 
warmth for us more common clay! ” 


79 



THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 



WE CLIMBED UPWARD FOK 

HOURS WITH EVES NEARLY BUNDED BY THE WHITE SNOW 

82 












THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


G ENERALLY speaking, the greatest pleasure 
taken in travel isn’t taken in travel at all, but 
in retrospection 5 or, more than that, even, in rem¬ 
iniscing. Next to a newly-laid parent, or a doting 
father whose callow offspring is beginning to have 
its wisdom and philosophy recorded for the edifica¬ 
tion of future generations and the desolation of this, 
there exists nowhere such another retailer of sayings 
and doings and seeings as the traveller. Even a 
sewing circle sits in silent admiration when a re¬ 
turned missionary takes the stand. 

To gratify curiosity, to anticipate the desire of 
readers to look ahead and ascertain in advance the 
outcome of a story, and also to relieve any anxiety 
which otherwise might be felt concerning my fate, 
I shall combine my first and last chapters in a con¬ 
cise prelude, as follows: 

PRELUDE 

I WENT-I SAW-I RETURNED 


I went, which I hardly need reaffirm. I saw! 

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Heaven forbid that I should tell all I saw! I re¬ 
turned and am here — which should convince the 
most skeptical, and reassure the most anxious as to 
my fate; and what is more, I am here to indulge 
myself in one of the greatest pleasures of travel. 

I wish I could have made the ocean voyage as 
short as this prelude just finished! The first days 
of my voyage I spent doing nothing, and the last 
days I spent in trying to undo from bottom, up, all 
the nothing I had done before. 

I was a miserable seaman, and there was no health 
in me. For a moment only, and that toward the 
close of the last day, was I allowed even a twinge of 
happiness and that was when we sighted the green 
hills of old England, off Plymouth, and then the 
jealous night set in chill and rainy and shut out from 
sight the patched quilt of landscape, with its wooded 
spaces, tilled fields, grassy openings, sweeps of wavy 
grain and green capped chalk cliffs. But real hap¬ 
piness did come and that was when I found myself 
in a clean French bed, with candle snuffed and cur¬ 
tain drawn, and gentle sleep about to settle on my 
lids at 2:30 o’clock of a Sunday morning in Cher¬ 
bourg. 

Because I skip that part, it does not signify that 
the encounter with the French Customs officials on 
the cold stone quay, in the drenching rain of a dark 

84 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


early morning, was without interest or humorous 
situation as well. But other encounters of mine with 
customs officials have been most replete with dra¬ 
matic incident and have more deeply touched my 
pocket book. 

The quaint tavern which contained the bed which 
contained me during the first few hours of my con¬ 
tinental wandering is well worth a word to those 
who never have enjoyed the welcome of similar pro¬ 
vincial hostelries. I remember that I hardly could 
keep my eyes open from weariness as we rode in the 
little “ bus ” from the quay through narrow dark 
streets, between high gabled houses, rattling over 
rough cobblestones, till at length we dipped under a 
low archway and brought up in the courtyard of the 
inn. Our hostess, with a bevy of neat white-capped 
maids, awaited us with lighted candles in the little 
office upon the stone pavement on which the rain was 
dripping. The courtyard was lower than the street, 
the office pave was lower than the courtyard, very 
evidently, for the water was flowing in streams into 
the house and it was too dark for us to see where it 
did manage to escape at last. I wondered why so 
great a part of so small an office was kept out of 
doors on rainy nights, and I thought to solve the 
problem to my entire satisfaction in the morning. 
But in the morning the aspect of things was changed 
for the sun was shining brightly on the tile roofs 

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about the court and upon the potted plants on the 
window ledges and the swinging casements reflected 
in every direction the cheery welcome of the bright 
sunshine of my first European day! The office 
seemed all right, perhaps a little damp as if from 
recent contact with scrubbing brush and broom, for 
the little rivers had, in some subterranean way a to 
the ocean run.” In the courtyard I saw a soldier 
and from then till I took ship homeward bound I 
couldn’t have slapped at a flea without hitting a sol¬ 
dier; not that all the fleas are on the soldiers, but 
that there is a soldier for every breath a fellow 
draws over there. The breakfast in the sunlit cafe 
was sweet and wholesome and blotted out the bitter 
memory of many an ocean steamship meal partaken 
of or passed by regretfully — anyway, lost to me. 
(I want to say parenthetically that my first ocean 
voyage was undertaken in extremely boisterous 
weather, and I had concentrated into one week of 
my existence all the misery which generally is al¬ 
lotted to one individual during the threescore and 
ten years it is given to man to suffer for the sins of 
his fathers. I wanted to die! and I said as much. 
That sounds strong, but it is the truth. If I should 
say “ I simply died ” — and we have heard the 
phrase used by good people not infrequently — that 
would be manifestly an untruth and, in this recital, 
86 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


I shall studiously, if not conscientiously, avoid enter¬ 
ing the region of manifest falsehood.) 

To those that love the sea, a land journey seems 
tame 5 but to me the smooth, swift ride by express 
from Cherbourg to Paris through the garden of 
Normandy was like the fragrance of a delicious 
dream, after my rude rocking in the arms of Nep¬ 
tune. Apple trees were laden almost to breaking 
— even the props bent beneath the ripening fruit. 
Roses climbed over the hedges along the track and 
covered the walls and roofs of the way-station 
houses. Peach, pear and apricot branches brushed the 
roofs and sides of the coaches as we swept through 
the orchards, and the guard must have received 
many a quick rap from the boughs as he passed along 
the foot-board at the side to collect the tickets. It 
was one stretch of beautiful sunlit garden as far as 
the eye could reach until we touched the skirts of 
Paris soon to be lost in the ample folds. It was a 
quick transition from the half-timbered cottages 
with thatched roofs to the domes and mansards of 
the gay city. But we did not mourn the transition, 
in spite of the beauty of the country for our cry was 
“ On to Paris! ” 

I will not try to describe Paris — better men have 
tried it and left but vague impression, like much 
impressionism, with distorted perspective and false 

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colors. To describe Paris! I imagine it would be 
like trying to describe a rainbow to a man blind from 
birth! Paris is the storm center of French life. 
Along her boulevards eddy and swirl tides and 
counter tides of humanity. On the surface of the 
current bubbles dance lightly and gaily; below, 
dragged down and along by the irresistible force and 
unyielding clutch of the undertow are all the pas¬ 
sions and vices that desire and pleasure and selfish¬ 
ness can beget in human breasts. If there is any 
worst to it all, the worst of it is that the vileness is 
in fascinating form. Even the sewers, they say, are 
clean and invitingly attractive! It is just to Paris, 
however, to say that all her cleanliness is not con¬ 
fined to her sewers, nor is it altogether wanting in 
the morals of her humanity. 

It did not take many hours’ strolling along these 
same boulevards, where one comes in contact with 
the entire scale of Parisian life, to fix one thing 
pretty firmly in my mind, and that was the absolute 
perfection of finish to everything to which the 
Frenchman applied his art, be that thing man, 
woman, child, painting, sculpture, building, or pave¬ 
ment, even. We may not like the style, but we must 
acknowledge here is style. Here is technical finish 
in the highest degree and it is controlled by a feel¬ 
ing for beauty and a knowledge of correct relation- 
88 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


ships. Take a French woman, for instance ; catch 
her with a dark skirt and light stockings. You can’t. 
Catch her with straw bonnet and fur shoulder cape. 
You can’t. Not only you can’t catch her, she doesn’t 
exist! From the toe of her boot to the tip of her 
glove finger, the French woman is perfectly har¬ 
monious in dress, and in the appreciation of this law 
of fitness she stands for her race in other matters. 

You cannot stick a spade into the ground in Italy 
without unearthing a fragment of ancient art, a relic 
of a dead past. You can’t lift your eye in France 
without beholding a finished piece of modern art, a 
vital factor of a living present. Even where ancient 
forms are touched it is with a spirit which brings 
them into harmony with the life of today. 

I never could reconcile the classical architecture 
of Munich to the surrounding art and life; but take 
the Madeleine! Somehow that great, simple Ro¬ 
man fagade never seemed an incongruous thing in 
Paris. Perhaps I am prejudiced! Well, perhaps I 
am. I came into Munich out of sunny Italy, in a 
snow storm with nose nearly frozen and fingers so 
stiff that I broke the mainspring when I went to wind 
my watch. All that did not seem to me to be quite 
consistent with bare heads and legs and floating 
togas! A German watchmaker mended the spring, 
but either the spring had contracted a cold or the 
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cold had contracted the spring, for the watch began 
immediately to get irregular in its habits and re¬ 
fused thereafter to run twenty-four hours without 
two windings. 

One cannot be much upon the streets of Paris 
without calling to mind the streets at home, and if 
he is a Chicagoan it will not be because of any simi¬ 
larity ; but part of the difference is this: In our 
streets you are apt to be crowded to the gutter by the 
piles of goods laid out on the sidewalk for sale and 
display, and these piles always are surrounded 
by an eager crowd of bargain seekers each strong to 
save that one cent as though it were one hundred 
dollars. In Paris the chairs and tables of the open 
air cafes blockade the walks and at certain hours 
are filled with gay and festive lunchers, who talk 
over affairs of business or of pleasure, of politics or 
of society; and the man who happens to be passing 
just then without appetite for foods or affairs is 
forced to balance along the curb or walk in the gut¬ 
ter. Here it would mean mud. There the pave¬ 
ment is as smooth and clean as a floor. 

It was during my second season in the capital that 
I attended the opening of the Great Salon. That 
is in May and is the social and artistic event of all 
Paris. Have you seen a penniless boy hanging wist¬ 
fully about a show tent? That was I and the Salon, 
90 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


metaphorically speaking. I had money enough, so 
far as that went, but I had no ticket and as the tickets 
that day, that great varnishing day, were compli¬ 
mentary and as nobody had offered to compliment 
me and I was too modest to seek a compliment, I 
stood simply looking. As I stood thus simply look¬ 
ing I was accosted by a dilapidated French gentle¬ 
man with a hungry visage. “ Would the Monsieur 
like to visit the Salon? ” Ye gods! was this a French 
angel in disguise? I believed so and hastened to 
bind its wings before it could get away. “ You 
bet,” I exclaimed (not strictly that for we conversed 
in the French gentleman’s own tongue but it will 
serve to show my state of mind). “ Indeed,” I said, 
“ it would be the greatest happiness of a life time.” 
“I have a ticket!” “How much! wie viel? 
Quanto costa? ” (I was excited) “combien! ” (at 
last). a Five francs! ” I fairly jumped. I would 
have given twenty but the French angel wasn’t look¬ 
ing for a crown! So I paid five francs, took my 
ticket and passed in with all the grandees of Paris 
and the visiting world. I would have given another 
five francs to know then, what I know now, that I 
was in the same room with Marie Bashkirtseff and 
her paintings. However, I saw no paintings that 
day. My head ached so that I had to leave the gal¬ 
leries when, after four hours’ counting, I had 
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reached only 15,000 new, beautiful, individual 
spring toilets on as many vivacious women, and had 
not seen them all! 

It is a night’s ride from Paris to Switzerland. I 
took that ride before I had seen Paris to my entire 
satisfaction, because I heard that heavy snows were 
falling in the passes early in the season and, while I 
wanted to do Switzerland, as tourists say, I did not 
desire to come into personal contact with an ava¬ 
lanche. However, early as I did go I had an ex¬ 
perience. To reach Chamounix I had intended tak¬ 
ing a “ voiture ” over the “ Tete Noir ” but the 
guides declared the roads impassable to vehicles and 
I was advised to desist. But I didn’t want to desist. 
That wasn’t what I went to Switzerland to do. I 
could have desisted anywhere, in America, for in¬ 
stance, if I had cared to. So the good people of the 
tavern of Martigny were prevailed upon to furnish 
me with a guide and a horse. The horse was under 
size and in course of half a mile I had winded him 
completely. However, he stood me in fair stead 
though I went on foot the remainder of the journey 
which was some fifteen miles in all, six of them 
uphill, for I strapped my traps to the saddle, and 
when we came to a particularly wet place I used him 
for a ferry. We climbed up for hours, with eyes 
nearly blinded by the sunshine on the fresh snow. 
We would turn now and then to look back on the 
92 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


little tavern below us, almost straight down, at first 
only a few feet and then a good many hundred, for 
the “ Tete Noir ” is one of the highest passes of the 
Alps. At last we reached the little hut which 
crowns the summit of the pass, and stopped on the 
wide bench to rest our tired limbs. I ordered two 
cents worth of wine for myself and brandy for my 
guide. As I took the glass, the wrinkled old hag 
who kept the hut said with a cracked smile, which 
may have been sunshine in other days, “ Le Mon¬ 
sieur a du bon courage! ” At first I thought she re¬ 
ferred to the wine, and I eyed the glass suspiciously 
as I took a sip. It was all right, so I ordered two 
cents worth more. Of course, she referred to my 
courage in attempting the pass after the hard storm 
of the previous night which, indeed, had blotted out 
every sign of the path in many a ticklish place, and 
must have skinned over many a dangerous crevasse. 
And, too, there was the added danger of snow slides. 
I disclaimed any especial courage, told her it was 
one of my customary constitutionals and went on my 
way rejoicing. On the down side we encountered 
a snow storm. We did not encounter much of it for 
it was leaving the valley just below us; but we saw 
it raging there, and were not grieved to see it sweep 
around a mountain, at angles to our course, and out 
of sight. We stopped at a more pretentious hut for 
late dinner, and here was hatched a weak conspiracy 
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to detain us for the night — bad roads, danger, etc. 
My guide was weakening. Two more brandies for 
him and we started. We lost our way, came back 
a rough mile and regained it, wandered uncertainly 
in the snow fields till suddenly we caught sight of 
the bald pate of Mont Blanc, and from that moment 
our guiding star was ever before us and all we had 
to do was to keep right on stumbling and slipping 
and ferrying and fording and sliding down into the 
valley where, long after dark, we saw the lights of 
Chamounix. 

It was pleasant to see the lights of Chamounix. I 
was pleased to find other travelers in the inn. After 
a hot supper by the side of a big blazing fire, I went 
to bed. I was too tired to have any care for damp 
sheets. In fact, I never thought about sheets till 
morning when I found I was frozen in between 
those on my bed. I called for help and a hatchet 
and by noon I was dressed and downstairs. From 
where I lay in my bed of ice I could look up the 
whole side of Mont Blanc from bottom to top and 
the sight was glorious. I had the pleasurable sensa¬ 
tion of being an integral part of one of the biggest 
things on earth. The sunshine which illumined 
that grand old crown was the same that flooded my 
bed chamber. The ice which glistened on that great 
bald pate descended in sheets and restrained gently 
but firmly my corporeal being, though my spirit 
94 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


could soar at will, and my voice could demand free¬ 
dom for my body. My voice prevailed and with a 
hatchet I cut Mont Blanc off from me and the great 
white mountain stands there sadly today, a maimed 
thing, while I am as whole and as happy as ever! 
Tourists mention the sad solitude of Mont Blanc — 
I have accounted for it! 

Caesar went into Switzerland by way of the 
Rhone Valley. I came out of Switzerland by way of 
the Rhone Valley. Curiously enough (as I thought) 
I did not see Caesar. I mentioned this to a friend 
who said the discrepancy of a few centuries of time 
might account for it easily enough. 

One can study and judge fairly of the taste of a 
people by the treatment given to blank walls. In 
France, for instance, the blank side of a building is 
treated with a simple architectural feeling. The 
Northern Spaniards who may be said to have an un¬ 
developed taste, decorate the blank sides of their 
buildings with painted landscapes, with impossible 
perspective, flat trees and never flowing fountains. 
Sometimes the lines of the composition are laid 
down so as to carry on into the picture the lines of a 
real park or garden at the base of the wall, as the 
solid or real relief and the flat are made to merge 
into each other in our cycloramas. However, the 
Spanish artists avoid extreme realism so that no un¬ 
wary one shall be injured in an unwitting attempt 

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to enter one of these ideal parks through a wall of 
solid masonry. In Northern Italy often the entire 
side of a building is covered with a painted archi¬ 
tectural composition, with all the accessories of life 
— painted flowers on painted balconies, painted men 
and painted women (the artist had no lack of 
models) making painted love or reading painted 
books behind painted windows. Sometimes the imi¬ 
tation of architectural features is so well done as to 
be quite deceptive; but a painted woman can be told 
a mile away. I should call all this a demonstration 
of perverted taste. And what we see in England 
but more especially in America, I should charge to 
an entire absence of taste. The germ, even, seems 
wanting so there is no promise for a better future. 
“ Coleman’s Mustard, Keen’s Mustard ” in Eng¬ 
land ; “ Bull Durham, Kentucky Bourbon, Foot- 
form Shoes,” “ Zip, cures in five days ” (it may 
have been three days, I don’t remember) — these 
and others similar are the legends which adorn our 
blank walls when the builder has not left them in 
such ugly shape as to preclude the possibility of even 
the vivifying touch of the sign painter’s art. 

Let us dwell on more cheerful matters. I used 
to find the various funeral customs of interest 
in different parts of the continent. In Venice friends 
and relatives send empty gondolas, draped with 
black, to piece out the procession and demonstrate 
96 


THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 


regard for the dead. In the Southern countries rela¬ 
tives or friends do not follow the body to the grave. 
It is accompanied by hired mourners who do all the 
wailing which is to be done in public. The corpse 
is the only member of the family who takes enough 
interest in the proceeding to go along and see if he 
is properly disposed of j and even he does not care 
enough to turn on his bier and rebuke the indiffer¬ 
ence of his hired companions. 

In Granada, the funeral party, instead of passing 
along the broad beautiful avenue which winds up 
past the Alhambra to the cemetery beyond, is forced 
to go up a steep, tortuous path in the narrow valley 
which lies between the Alhambra and the Gen- 
eraliflfe. So the funeral band must necessarily be in 
a disordered state when it reaches the high plateau 
beyond. It is not the disorder but the heartlessness 
which clings to my memory. I stepped aside one 
day to let a straggling party pass. My eyes rested 
accidentally on the form on the uncovered bier. I 
have no particular leaning toward corpses in general 
but this vision I shall not care to forget. The form 
was that of a young girl, of twelve years or there¬ 
abouts, clothed as for the first communion, with the 
long veil fastened by a wreath of flowers to the soft 
dark hair. My eyes, which had caught by accident, 
held with eager intention. No Greek marble ever 
was so pure, so delicately chiseled, so beautiful in 
97 


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the suggestion of ineffable calm. No sculptor could 
express the mystery, the tenderness, the sweet re¬ 
pose of those lids, fringed with the long, dark curv¬ 
ing lashes. I did not wonder that He who gave it 
should want it back again, but I did wonder that the 
father and mother into whose charge such beauty 
had been committed should leave it, unattended by 
love, in the heartless surroundings in which I saw 
it. The boy who carried the cover of the bier set it 
up against a bank of earth while he rested his aching 
arms. The wretched little acolytes flung aside their 
tapers and heaved rocks and clods of earth at the 
target, thus inadvertently set up. The bearers of 
the bier stumbled and jarred and halted and jested 
in coarse voices. She did not care. I was the only 
person who minded it at all. And — and I — well, 
what was a little dead Spaniard “ to me, that I 
should weep for her? ” 


98 


THE WHALE-A STUDY 



t 


out PROPHET FROM MAKER TO CONSUMER. 1 JONAH TURNSTHETABLES 
IOO 





THE WHALE - A STUDY 

THE HISTORIC SCHOOL OF JONAH 

I WAS MUCH interested in the diagram on the 
Time Card sent out by the Secretary of the Club 
the other day, accompanying the notice of a Musi¬ 
cal Soiree to be given at some future date in the club 
rooms. At first glance I supposed that the pink card 
was an enclosed dodger surreptitiously introduced 
by some irresponsible mailing firm to call attention 
to the times of sailing and to the admirable accom¬ 
modation and service on the Whaleback, which takes 
men in happy frame to Milwaukee to be married — 
and returns them to become sober. This idea was 
rather borne out by the portrait on the reverse of 
the card of such a jolly tar, wearing pinned to the 
bosom of his bathing suit the insignia of his ship, 
seemingly. Then the brilliant complexion of “ Lit¬ 
erary Club ” and “ Jonah ” dazzled my eye and I 
perceived that I was on the wrong tack, nautically 
speaking, for there was no possible connection be¬ 
tween Jonah and the S. S. Christopher Columbus. 
The u Whaleback ” is said not to be profitable while, 
as is stoutly maintained in some quarters, in the time 
IOI 


CLUB PAPERS 

of Jonah there was considerable prophet in one 
whale — an individual prophet, as it were — one 
profit from maker to consumer! 

While cogitating on this and kindred themes, I 
was inspired to study the natural history of the whale 
and found much to my profit in the many interest¬ 
ing and scientific facts. Neither I, nor the authori¬ 
ties I have taken occasion to consult, have had 
Jonah’s splendid and I may say unique opportunity 
to take an inside view into the workings of the whale 
in the domestic economy of every day life. We 
have arrived at our conclusions from careful use of 
the dissecting knife and the microscope. As to that 
powerful, vital engine in the hold of the whale, we 
all agree that it is “ heart to beat.” 

Although living in the water the true whale re¬ 
sents being called a fish. Some un-naturalists once, 
in the presence of a mother whale, referred to her 
cub as a cunning little fish 5 whereupon she inter¬ 
jected in almost the words of “ the father of her 
country,” “ I cannot tell a lie, I did not do it with 
my little hatch it. ” And, indeed, to its lasting 
credit be it set down that in all the great multitude 
and magnitude of fish stories, the whale has never 
been known to utter a lie. Whales though moral are 
not necessarily ecclesiastical. 

Now Bulls may be papa- 1 . Whales are mam¬ 
ma-1 always. 


102 


THE WHALE —A STUDY 


Whales swim naturally with great ease and their 
tails — steering with one fin and nursing their 
young with the udder. 

The most recent discovery in connection with the 
whale is that it does not play golf. The links of an 
anchor chain do not offer a sporting ground suitable 
to whales. 

Whales do not care to indulge in football or 
sports of that nature though they spend so much of 
their time in schools. The nature of the work is al¬ 
most entirely academic so that the head of a whale 
soon develops to about one-third the size of the 
body. A large part of their school term is given to 
Delsarte and elocution, with great attention to cor¬ 
rect breathing; so that the whale learns to “ spout 
with considerable violence ” like a senator or an 
alderman though unlike an alderman in that water 
is the whale’s natural element. A suck of salt water 
flavored with iceberg puts the whale in the best of 
spirits. But like the senator and the alderman, 
when the whale spouts in public it gives itself dead 
away, for then the man at the mast-head cries “ there 
she blows ” and that is the signal for the harpoon or 
the lampoon. 

Without wishing in the least to disparage the 
whale I must say that in one thing it much resembles 
the populist and free silver orator. Its jaws are six 
feet wide, open up ten feet high and are sixteen feet 
103 


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long. Just think of it! 16 to i —sixteen feet of 
jaw to one whale. 

Like old Mr. Johnson of the song, the whale has 
troubles of its own and has been caught weeping 
bitterly — but it much prefers to keep its blubber 
to itself. 

The whale, producing as it does necessary and 
beautiful articles of toilet such as seafoam, whale 
oil soap and corsets, is much affected by the ladies. 
The jaw of the north whale is equipped with about 
a ton of fish plates composed of whalebone. It is 
the function of this bone to catch fish and truck 
for its whaleship’s food; and being deeply attached 
to the whale it performs this function cheerfully 
throughout its aquatic life. When its term of food 
gathering is completed, the whalebone enters into 
rest in corset form and embraces the dainty waist of 
many a charming maid. A rich reward, indeed, for 
a life of service. I believe there are men who would 
fish for a whale if for reward they might forever 
clasp in their sinewy and flexible arms some lithe, 
slender female form. It were a consummation de¬ 
voutly to be wished — could one be assured that it, 
in time, might not become consomme! 

And now having imparted to the club more in¬ 
formation concerning the whale than I, myself, 
possess, I retire in favor of some disciple whose 
barque threads more fluently than does mine the 
watery mazes of the lie. 

104 


POETRY NIGHT 



f 

AND 50, AS. POETRY WIU.NOT COME AND PUR£ SWEET PROSL IS NOT AT HOME. 

106 













POETRY NIGHT 

CHAPTER INTRODUCTIONS 


The Symphonic Tapestry 

The grandest design that Eternity holds 
Is woven of threads that are picked up each day. 
The luminous life that will live alway 
Is wrot from the Tints which each Hour unfolds 
But 

The luminous life is a vain conceit. 

For the warp and woof of the grand Ideal 
Tangle and snarl in the Creaking Real 
And threads won’t run and lines won’t meet. 


To some it is Providence (Capital P.) 

To some it is Luck (with a big, big D.) 

But Luck or Fate or whatever it may 
It touches life after its own sweet way. 

The man below bobs up with a smile 

And sports on the surface with Bubbles a-while. 

The man on top goes down with McG. 

And is lost in the depths of the bottomless sea. 
107 


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The Heliogabali 

Inspired (?) by Heliogabali generally, and the 
Heliogabali of the Cliff Dwellers particularly. As 
Bertie, the Lamb, might have said — “ and every 
fellah thinks that he — as well as the other fellah 
— is a devil of a fellah — but he isn’t.” 

The form of this poem is peculiar. The paren¬ 
thetical lines, while bearing upon or expanding the 
line each follows, form in themselves a complete 
Sextet, — which might well stand under a com¬ 
posite portrait of the giddy bunch. 


108 


POETRY NIGHT 


Congenial friends about a board 

(These are the Cliff Dwelling Heliogabali) 
With vintage rare from cellars stored. 

With song and quip and bubbling jest 

(That babble and bubble — spiritus frumenti) 
To give the dainty viands zest. 

And ere the sparkling feast be done 

(Some feast! that is served at a dollar a cover) 
Swift sinking to oblivion — 

That wines and viands may not pall 

(How sassy it is to put such a thing over) 

Nor two seem to drop where one does fall. 

As feast and life draw toward an end 

(They stick to the chairs as long as they’re able) 
This hopeful wish do all extend: 

A cordialed meeting bye and bye 

(At last the whole bunch is under the table) 
Embalmed spirits hence to hie! 


109 


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Immortality 

I have listened on various and sundry occasions to 
the assumption by men of little experience and slight 
attainments that immortality was to be their part. 
Whatever could they do with it! Whatever of 
comfort or of happiness could immortality hold for 
one who had gained so little of what this mortal life 
has to offer! Real appreciation and understanding, 
real living, come only through personal participa¬ 
tion in effort. How many of the Human Race have 
reached spiritually and emotionally to and through 
sculpture, as did Angelo ; painting, as did Raphael 5 
musical composition, as did Beethoven; acrobatics, as 
did Schaefer 5 design, as did Da Vinci \ philosophy, 
as did Bacon j poesy, as did Shakespeare; and so on 
through the field of human endeavor. When such 
capacity and achievement is general in the race then 
will be the time to dream of immortality! This 
thought I have cast in sonnet form. 


no 


POETRY NIGHT 


Doest thou claim Immortality, O man! 

Thinkst thou thy soul will need so wide a space! 
Hast reached the confines of this measured place — 
Fulfilled in thought and deed the finite plan? 

Hast mastered Science and Philosophyj 
Known well through thine own act the joy of Art — 
Of every phase of Life become a part; 

In Rhythm set thy fettered spirit free? 

The oceans of eternity were deep 

For him who has not plumbed the pool of time! 

Too vast were Immortality for one 

Who in this u little life ” has failed to reap 

The harvest rich of thought and deed sublime 

Which mortal man has e’er conceived and done. 


hi 


CLUB PAPERS 


VERS LIBRE 

A LITTLE LOLLIPOP ALONG THE LATEST LITERARY LINE 
OF LEAST-RESISTANCE; CONSISTING OF A DEFINITION, 
A PRELUDE AND A “POME.” 

Definition 

Vers libre is a form in which 
a theme unworthy of a 
pure prose embodiment 
is developed by one who 
is incapable of pure poetic 
expression. 


112 


POETRY NIGHT 


Prelude 

I sought release in rhymed verse 
But soon was disabused. 

The metre went from bad to worse; 

The only rhyme to come was hearse 
My pen aught else refused. 

So then I knew my Muse was dead; 
And no one better knows, 

That all the things I would have said 
(Poetic fancy having fled) 

Were better put in Prose. 

But neither Prose nor Poetry 
Would come at my command. 

The only form, apparently, 

Was Verse denominated “ Free.” 

But such Verse must be “ Scanned.” 
It must be scanned by fleshly eye, 

For to the physically blind 

Free Verse affords no means whereby 
It may impress, or even try 
As Poetry to reach, the mind. 


CLUB PAPERS 


For to the eye of flesh alone 
Free Verse as Poetry appears ; 

Law, Order and Restraint are gone; 

Of pulsing melody — there’s none 
To fill the spirit’s listening ears. 

An amiable amble, gentle jog, 

A balk — it’s Form; a wabbly trot. 
Sophisticated, luminous fog 
And Sentiment drawn from a bog 
Disport themselves as “ Rhymes of Thought.” 

And so, as Poetry will not come 
To aid me in this dire case, 

As pure, sweet Prose is not at home 
(And other Prose disturbs me some) 

I’ll ask Vers Libre to save my face. 

With such may one confuse the Arts 
And sing for eye and paint for ear, 

And dance for corpses stiff whose hearts 
Have long since passed to other parts 
Nor hate, nor love, nor hope, nor fear. 


POETRY NIGHT 

The Pome 

Upon the floor 
A Child 

And yet another child — 

Two children so — 

And still ’tis hard to understand 
Why 5 tis 

A child and yet another child 
Should be two child-ren 
And not 
Two child-s! 

But even so. 

Between the two 
A Chessboard stretched, — 

Its squares of black 
And white 

With Kings and Queens and pawns bedeckt. 

And Knights and Bishops were there 
And Castles, too. 

One pawn rambunctious got 
And 

In one single move he swept the whole field clear! 
Loud laughter followed this on-slaughtj and glee! 


CLUB PAPERS 

The child, 

The other child, 

The childer -en 
Enjoyed the sport, 

The game. — 

Ah yes, 

The sport, 

The game. — 

(A rhyme, or better — parallel — of thought.) 

Ah yes! 

But then, indeed, was it a game? 

Not chess — 

Though played with Knights and pawns and Kings 
And Queens 
On chessman’s field. 

There was no law, 

No stern, 

Inflexible and stringent rules 
To be obeyed j no heavenly order 
Set 

To be maintained. 

A mere child’s whim — and nothing more! 

To the child a game? 

Yes, only to the child! 

And on such games as this are only children fed — 
And on such poetry — 

And only to the uninitiated are 
Such things real games; 

116 


POETRY NIGHT 


And only to the unimaginative is such 
Stuff poetry. 

But it is fun! 

And We, 

Kids, 

Must have fun. 

Frost is on the pane 
For ’tis a slushy, slippery, 

Winter’s day. 

Within, 

A petal from a rose, 

Falls from a jar — 

And by a jar. 

(A subtle thought 

And rhyme of static state and motion, too!) 
And floating lightly down the air 
Rests on the rug. 

Ah, there is law! 

The law of gravity. 

The child, 

The other child, 

The child-ren, 

Note it not, 

Without, — 

(Oh! subtle rhyme of place 
And circumstance — 

Within — without!) — 

117 


CLUB PAPERS 


Without, 

A fleshy woman slips upon the ice 
And, with gesticulation wild, 

She falls 
Upon her ear. — 

(Another rhyme of thought 
And subtle rhyme of place! 

Upon her rear.) — 

The law of gravity again! 

The children note it not. 

But — 

The law of levity appears holding shaking sides, 
And tickles children’s in’ards 
To the core, as, 

Flabbergast and all distraught, the woman picks 
Her heavy body up! 

Would God! 

Man had the Childer’s innocence 
And insouciance 

And felt and saw in forms of modern art 
Some what of that light levity 
Grave, stupid gravity instills! 

Then were we sane, 

And, after each depressing swat, 

We could 

Unlike the female dumpling dropt, 

Smiling ’rise and rehabilitate ourselves again. 


BOOK NIGHT 



THE. HAND THAT ROUNDED PETER'S DOME. AUD GROINED THE AISLES OF CHRISTIAN ROME 
120 


















































BOOK NIGHT 

“SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON” 


AS THAT PARTY of “ lusty gentlemen,” on 
ii that fateful night in Verona, was about to set 
forth upon what proved to some of its members to 
be the great adventure of their lives, and fraught 
with melancholy and tragic consequences, Romeo 
remarked, “ I dreamt a dream tonight 3” to which 
Mercutio responded “ And so did I.” “ Well,” 

Romeo asked, “ what was yours? ” “ That dream¬ 
ers often lie.” “ In bed asleep,” added Romeo, 
“ where they do dream things true.” I am in¬ 
terested not so much in Mercutio’s description of 
a Queen Mab ” which followed, as in the conclusion 
indicated — that when this atomic instigator of 
dream touches the relaxed chords, each instrument 
gives out harmonies (or discords) after its own 
waking nature: thus, 

“ Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of 
love 3 

O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies 
straight 3 

121 


CLUB PAPERS 


O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees: 
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream; 


Tickling a parson’s nose that lies asleep, 

Then dreams he of another benefice j 
Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, 

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats ” 
etc., etc. 

until Romeo cries, “ Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! 
Thou talkest of nothing.” “ True,” answered 
Mercutio, “ I talk of dreams j which are the children 
of an idle brain — .” 

I shall not argue as to the relative fertility of the 
dream soil in a static or a dynamic brain field, but I 
fain would note that there is complete correspond¬ 
ence between the subject matter of the dreams I am 
about to record and my own waking thoughts and 
activities. 

As to Mercutio’s remark “that dreamers often 
lie ” — well, dreamers, especially waking dreamers, 
often are possessed of imagination 5 but neither this 
element nor that of conscious embroidery attaches 
to what I am about to set down; that is, to the dream 
portion which, in both cases, presented itself vividly 
to my sleeping vision and remains vivid in my wak¬ 
ing memory. The experience would seem to answer 
affirmatively the question as to whether or no dreams 
122 


BOOK NIGHT 


are ever coherent and, even, as to whether real 
“ jokes ” are perpetrated in dreams. In the first 
instance cited I was conscious that I was indulging 
in a “ pleasantry,” and in the dream I laughed in 
hearty enjoyment. In the second instance I am not 
so certain that I was conscious of making a pun, but 
I felt a glow of satisfaction in having said some¬ 
thing “ pat.” However, not until after I had ana¬ 
lyzed my dream and had identified the complexes, 
did I appreciate how altogether pat the answer was. 
Without further prelude, then, let me establish a 
background against which to sketch the outline of 
my earlier dream. 

I was, once upon a time, superintending the con¬ 
struction of two summer cottages designed by my 
firm for clients in a North Shore suburb. The struc¬ 
tures were underpinned with cedar posts which were 
set in holes dug in the ground. To insure drainage 
the bottom of each hole was filled with small field 
stones worn smooth and rounded by the elements. 

I spent the week-end now and again with friends 
living in the suburb, and had gone with them upon 
occasion to the service in the Presbyterian Church, 
presided over by a plump, intense little Dominie 
who had a habit of screwing his face to his notes 
upon the desk, while at intervals he viewed his con¬ 
gregation through squint eyes, peering over the 
upper rim of his spectacles. His expression of coun- 
123 


CLUB PAPERS 


tenance, intense and interrogative, always amused 
me so that perhaps I did not take him or his words 
as seriously as I should. 

Once after visiting the scene of the building op¬ 
erations with my clients I had the dream in which 
I perpetrated the pleasantry and delivered myself 
of something in the nature of a pun. On the morn¬ 
ing following the night of the dream I asked my 
brother if he remembered the name of a game we 
used to play as boys, the game in which one boy 
strove to “ bowl ” out of a shallow hole in the earth 
a stone rolled in by another boy. He told me the 
name, the one I had used in my dream; a name 
which I had not had in mind for many a long year. 
This was the dream: 

On a beautiful Sunday morning the families of 
my clients and I, a jolly party, were at the site of 
the future cottages rolling stones into the holes 
which had been dug for the underpinning. In turn 
we would cast a stone and try to displace one which 
had found lodgment in a hole. At this juncture 
along came the Dominie who eyed us for a few 
moments in his intense pulpit fashion and then asked 
solemnly, “ Are you remembering the Sabbath Day 
to keep it holy? ” As the others appeared reticent 
it devolved upon me to make answer, and, shying 
the “ dornick ” I held in my hand, I said, “Yes! 
don’t you see? We are remembering to keep it 
124 


BOOK NIGHT 


Holey-Bowley,” a pleasantry the dream people all 
seemed thoroughly to enjoy. 

A more elaborate pattern must be woven into the 
background of the dream which came to me on a 
night early in February, 1920. Very vivid and defi¬ 
nite it was, involving several “ complexes ” and re¬ 
lating itself directly to experiences and to mental 
operations of the recent past. I hastily sketch the 
background. 

In May of 1919 I attended the convention of the 
American Institute of Architects in Nashville, Tenn. 
The good people of the town entertained the visit¬ 
ing architects at a barbecue at the “ Hermitage ” 
which was reached by automobile. This will ac¬ 
count for the “ banquet complex ” in the dream. 
Now, I have sometimes been inclined to question 
the absolute validity of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 
theory of the identity of the processes of Art and 
Nature, and the philosophy underlying the manifes¬ 
tations of each, as implied, at least, in his rare poem, 
“ The Problem,” from which I quote: 

“ The hand that rounded Peter’s dome, 

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity; 

Himself from God he could not free.” 


125 


CLUB PAPERS 


Note particularly the last line. And again farther 
on in the poem: 

“ These temples grew as grows the grass.” 
Abbeys, Temples, Pyramids, Shrines, — 

“ Nature gladly gave them place, 

Adopted them into her race, 

And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat.” 

As I had quoted these last lines and discussed their 
content in print fairly recently, the relationship of 
this matter to the “ subject complex ” of the dream 
conversation is readily traced. On the evening of 
the Friday preceding the night of my dream, my 
brother and I had visited the studio of an artist who 
exhibited to us several paintings of brilliantly 
colored cliffs and “ architectonic ” masses in the 
landscape of the Far West; —weird, entrancing 
things they were. Upon arriving at home after this 
visit, my brother, for purposes of comparison, pro¬ 
duced his colored photographs of the Dolomites 
together with architectural subjects, upon the char¬ 
acteristic beauty of which he discoursed with en¬ 
thusiasm, indicating the while various features in 
detail. The bearing of all this on what follows will 
126 


BOOK NIGHT 


become apparent; and against the background I have 
now laid in, the outlines of the second dream will 
stand in clear relief. 

The dream: I found myself on one bright morn¬ 
ing in an automobile, in company with a half dozen 
other architects, on a foraging expedition near Rock¬ 
ford, Ill. We had set out to gather some ears of 
green corn which were to be roasted in the husk for 
a forthcoming banquet of our guild. We procured 
the desired provender at the farm of the Emersons 
(relatives of Ralph Waldo, though the relationship 
was not specifically noted in the dream) who, recog¬ 
nizing in us kindred spirits, invited us into the house 
to j oin them in the noonday meal. We accepted and 
immediately the talk turned on art topics. One of 
the younger ladies of the family went to a cabinet 
in the well appointed drawing room and thence 
brought a number of colored photographs of the 
Dolomites and of the Grand Canyon, together with 
photographs of architectural subjects. (The colors 
stood out vividly in my dream.) Certain of the 
photographs, the natural subjects in her left hand 
and the architectural in the right hand, were held up 
for inspection by a gentle old lady seated in a low 
divan around which the little party was gathered. 

As I looked down upon her face from my stand¬ 
ing position I was distressed to notice that her silken 
gray hair was rather sparse and that there was a flat 
127 


CLUB PAPERS 

black mole on her right temple. She spoke with 
animation and, pointing out the details or tracing 
the outlines of the objects in the photographs, which 
she held in one hand, with a corner of one of the 
photographs she held in the other, said: “ Now I get 
no sort of sense of relationship between these masses 
and details and this or these! ” indicating in turn the 
face of a cliff or a mountain and the facade of a 
cathedral or a palace. “They seem totally unre¬ 
lated ; I perceive no correspondence between them.” 

“ It is altogether natural and proper that you 
should perceive none,” said I; “ for these,” indicat¬ 
ing the natural objects, “ are the product and 
manifestation of blind forces — blind, unknowing, 
unconscious forces working to an unseen and un¬ 
knowable end; while these,” I continued, indicating 
the architectural subjects, u are the works of a con¬ 
sciously directed and knowing force moving un¬ 
erringly toward a pre-determined and desired goal.” 
This explanation seemed to satisfy the others, as it 
did me. 

Suddenly the dear old lady looked up and asked 
a question which seemed not at all to break the se¬ 
quence, “ Which process, do you think, is the more 
tedious? ” 

“ Ah 1 Madam,” I answered, out of my knowl¬ 
edge and appreciation of nature and the arts, “ no 
128 


BOOK NIGHT 


element of tedium, nor, for that matter, of Te 
Deum, enters into either of the processes! ” 

This answer so evidently rounded out the subject 
that the dream faded immediately into nothingness, 
and, upon waking, I rehearsed it to my brother sub¬ 
stantially in the form in which I have here set it 
down. 

Now, with a transition quite as gradual as that 
through which my dream lady reached her last ques¬ 
tion, I am led to wonder if the “ processes ” under¬ 
lying the structure of such dreams as the foregoing 
— barring the humor, which never consciously (?) 
enters into spiritualistic presentations — may not 
account for many of the manifestations which ac¬ 
company the very recent if not altogether present 
hysterical search into the “ beyond,” * as they have 
accompanied all similar search in other and similar 
periods of stress. May it not well be that, impelled 
by wills stronger than his own, or self-hypnotized 
into a state of ready acquiescence and response, the 
subject projects his subconscious being against a back¬ 
ground of real experience woven of anguish, hope, 
despair, love and longing, and dreams dreams or 
has them dreamed for him — the effect in both cases 
being similar — the vision seeming real while the 

* Lodge and Conan Doyle at that time were very much in the 
public eye. 


129 


CLUB PAPERS 


condition lasts ? Too rarely does the subj ect awaken 
to the reality, while all too often the glory of the 
dream, translated into waking speech, is dissipated 
in a vapor of banality or incoherency. As to these 
dreams which I have just recorded, the “glory” 
may never have enveloped them, though that they 
are characterized by a certain “ freshness ” will 
hardly be denied. 


130 


AN ARCHITECT IN THE 
CLASSICAL LANDS 












AN ARCHITECT IN THE 
CLASSICAL LANDS 


T HE CLASSICAL lands hold a glamor for 
architect, archaeologist and traveler. The 
archaeologist digs among ruins and seeks to restore 
ancient buildings upon paper or in models and, again 
on paper, to repeople them with the individuals of 
contemporary society. He digs among graves and 
tombs and deciphers inscriptions and hieroglyphs to 
determine the status of the art, religion, philosophy, 
customs and manners of bygone days. But the con¬ 
temporary architect created the reality and, because 
of spiritual insight into contemporary life, was able 
to give it definite expression and interpretation in the 
material, thus creating and constructing buildings 
which, even in ruin, remain vital records of the civi¬ 
lization of his time. As the modern architect is at 
one in sympathy and understanding with his ancient 
brother, performing for the present what his ancient 
brother did for the past, he has, or should have, a 
very fair conception as to how these architectural 
records of great civilizations came into being. 
133 


CLUB PAPERS 

Therefore the figure of the architect may well be in 
the picture in a vision of the classical lands! 

The classical lands! Greece and the Isles, far 
Spain, North Africa, Asia Minor, the Near East; 
Constantinople of the Christian era as well as the 
Athens of Pericles. The impulse which flowed in 
rhythmic vibrations through the life in all these 
lands in ancient days and which unifies the varied 
pictures — an impulse which is not totally lost even 
in the hubbub and hurly-burly of our Western 
Civilization — this impulse emanated from that sec¬ 
tion, small in area, immense in realized potentiali¬ 
ties, called Greece; and at its center was Athens and 
at the center of Athens, the spiritual center, was the 
Acropolis. It is the spirit of Greece which makes 
lands classical, works classical and forms classical, 
and which animated the past from which we sprang; 
a past of which we are still a part. 

I shall deal herein, in not too pedantic mood, with 
the reactions of a present day architect, none other 
than myself, to sights seen and sounds heard in lands 
made classic by the persisting vitality of this spirit 
of Ancient Greece. Within the forms of Greek 
architecture, as I had known them in lifeless copies, 
in books, plates, photographs and models, I sensed 
an animating spirit. I tried to set this spirit free and 
to take it to myself as guide and counselor. The in¬ 
trinsic difference between the architectures of Greece 
134 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


and Egypt became clear to me and I felt sure that, 
contrary to a widely promulgated theory, Greek 
forms were not borrowed from Egypt; that Greek 
architecture no more evolved out of Egyptian archi¬ 
tecture than did the Greek evolve from the Egyp¬ 
tian, or the Caucasian from the Negroid. It was 
partly to satisfy myself as to the validity of my own 
theory that I took the journey which led me through 
the classical lands and into the presence not only of 
the Egyptian temples, but of that wonderful mani¬ 
festation of the clarity and logic of Greek thought, 
Hagia Sophia at Constantinople; and on to the well- 
springs of inspiration in the shadows of the Parthe¬ 
non on the Athenian Acropolis. I use the term 
Hagia Sophia — the Divine Wisdom — that the 
mind may not hold a misty image of the material 
body of a nonexistent female saint but, rather, be 
bathed in a pure spiritual essence. 

It is with some trepidation that I say that the 
Greeks did thus and so, or thought thus and so; or 
that I suggest that my individually developed 
theory embodies the spirit of Ancient Greece. I 
well know what numerous misshapen and fantastic 
burdens have been foisted on the Greeks, ancient 
and modern. If one evolves out of the recesses of 
nowhere in particular a theory of dynamic sym¬ 
metry, he foists it upon the innocent Ancient Greeks. 
If one, after a period of arduous labor, concocts some 
135 


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mathematical theory of design which will fit many 
a two dimensional and now and then a minor three 
dimensional work of art, he, too, proceeds to foist 
it upon the Ancient Greeks who, being dead but 
surely not forgotten, have no material means of de¬ 
fending themselves. They are defended and ex¬ 
onerated in the minds of all sensitive beings who 
know the difference between art and the application 
of mathematical formulae 5 who know the difference 
between a mathematical series and the rhythmic play 
of vibrant emotion. I have no quarrel with that 
rhythmic and admirable science, mathematics, ab¬ 
stract or applied 5 my quarrel is with those who 
would make a wrong application and bring art and 
life down to the terms of an algebraic equation in 
which there is but the one and inevitable value of X 
and the one and inevitable value of Y. Life, and art 
— the spiritual expression and interpretation of life 
in the material — are replete with variations from 
the norm 5 with accidentals which give interest and 
color, and give room for that play of individuality 
and personality which would vitiate a problem in 
geometry. So, again I say that it is with trepidation 
that I advance my theory as one acted upon by the 
Ancient Greeks in developing their art. My theory 
has nothing to do with mathematical formulae nor 
with geometrical forms, but solely with the spiritual 
and physical reactions of a man faced with the condi- 

136 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


tions incident to living, to real living, in any or all 
localities, in any or all periods of time. Scrutiniz¬ 
ing my own reactions and reading myself into the 
life of the Greeks, as interpreted to me by their 
philosophy, their literature and drama, their sculp¬ 
ture and architecture, I am constrained to believe 
that they acted upon a very concrete impulse or 
theory. I know that they acted and reacted as sen¬ 
sitive and sensible men of their sort would have been 
likely to act and react to similar stimuli under simi¬ 
lar conditions 3 only perhaps their actions and reac¬ 
tions were finer because of their demonstratedly 
finer aesthetic perceptions. One who can feel asks 
no further demonstration of the super-refinement 
of the Greeks’ aesthetic perceptions after he has 
bowed in reverential awe under the all space encom¬ 
passing dome of Hagia Sophia or has bathed his 
spirit in the charm which emanates from the ruined 
yet living Parthenon which crowns the Athenian 
Acropolis. 

However, in talking of the spiritual aspects of 
Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon before we have 
traversed the material paths which lead up to them, 
we seemingly have plunged into the middle of 
things. Let us orient ourselves and enter the Medi¬ 
terranean, that great sea bordering the classical lands, 
from the Western ocean between the Pillars of Her¬ 
cules, those far outposts of the antique world. On 
137 


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our left is Spain, a land which, if not decorated too 
profusely with the flowers of classical mythology, 
shows still the fruits of Roman Civilization. Where 
Rome was, pure water flowed, and was enjoyed. 
Tarragona, once the center of Roman power in 
Spain, is rich in Roman remains and in Roman tradi¬ 
tions. Spain to the west and north is similarly rich; 
in the south, Moorish and Arabian life and culture 
wiped away all trace of Rome except as it may appear 
in fragments in the Moorish structures. 

Rome, with her temples, baths and aqueducts, was 
not only a good builder and water carrier, she was 
a good locater and in no instance was she happier 
than in surveying that rich high valley to the south 
of the Tell Atlas and in establishing therein the City 
of Thamugas, now called Timgad, which lies over 
the mountains a hundred miles or more from the 
sea, near the far eastern border of Algeria; it is 
reached from Batna over smooth roads winding 
higher and higher toward the snow peaks which fur¬ 
nished the life-giving waters to the town. Flocks, 
herds and droves were grazing in the rich upland 
pastures. Grain fields lay spread out in the sun as 
far as the eye could reach, away over southward to 
where the desert begins or, better, where the prog¬ 
ress of the desert northward is halted by a range of 
low hills. The valley, most austere in its beauty, 
138 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


is reached through groves of olives and almonds in 
blossom and forests of cork trees. At the head of 
this valley lie the bare, comely, and the but recently 
uncovered bones of long buried Timgad. The 
guide books will tell you that the city was founded 
at the order of Trajan by the Commander of the 
Third Legion, but I need only tell of the beauty 
which lies there on the fertile plain in appealing 
ruin for your inner and outer eyes to feast upon. 
With none of the sophistication of Pompeii the ruins 
of the theatre, the forum, the arch and the capitol 
stand in monumental grandeur, while the remains 
of multitudinous bathing establishments tell to what 
use some of the water from the nearby mountain 
springs was diverted. 

Two or three days eastward lies Carthage, redo¬ 
lent of Rome. Again aqueducts and cisterns; again 
remains of theatres and circuses. I was not so much 
impressed by being in the home town of St. Cyprian 
and “ best Augustine ” as by being where Dido had 
been; and Hannibal, who crossed the Alps with one 
hundred thousand men and forty elephants. The 
ratio between men and elephants amuses us moderns. 
One hundred thousand men is, for us, a restricted ra¬ 
tion of cannon-fodder, while the number of ele¬ 
phants seems also small. We remembered that the 
Ringlings were wont to cross twice yearly a vast con- 
139 


CLUB PAPERS 

tinent and two mountain ranges with twelve hundred 
men and forty elephants. To have been in the Ring- 
ling class, Hannibal should have had with him three 
thousand, three hundred and thirty-three elephants 
and one-third. Then, as a flippant person might 
say, his show — of taking Rome — would have 
been better. 

Off to the eastward of old Carthage, and a few 
points to the north, Italy has booted little Sicily out 
into the sea nearly making Siamese twins of the 
Mediterranean. Near the southeastern extremity 
of this much buffeted island — for Sicily down 
through the ages has been buffeted not only by 
warring winds and waves, but by warring tribes and 
races — lies Syracuse. We are taken ashore in 
tenders. Near the landing stage lies, bordered by 
papyrus plants, a pool of limpid water known as the 
Fountain of Arethusa. Now we know that we are 
in the truly classical lands rather than in what we 
may call the pseudo-classical lands which we have 
been visiting. The Roman engineering and struc¬ 
tural forms which we have viewed so far were crea¬ 
tive expressions, but not rightfully to be called 
classical. Classical has to do with form which func¬ 
tions rightfully, truthfully, and beautifully. Forms 
intrinsically Roman functioned rightly, generally 
truthfully, always powerfully j and might have been 
made to function as beauty had the Romans had a 
140 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


deeply aesthetic nature. The Roman, however, did 
not see beneath the surface of beauty. He saw 
beauty in the superficial aspect of the Grecian Tem¬ 
ples. That surface beauty he applied to his great 
engineering works in the expectation of making 
them beautiful. But he confused issues, combined 
systems, and created an active restlessness which 
was the antithesis of Greek poise and self-control. 
He was sincere, but his nature lacked that poise and 
sweet constraint which was in the Greek mind. 
Power and mixed motives showed always through 
his architecture and robbed it of a truly classical 
quality. So we may be justified in calling the Ro¬ 
man lands pseudo-classical lands. 

Roman influence was felt in Syracuse, as wit¬ 
nessed by the remains of the amphitheatre. Sports 
were always a star feature on the Roman pro¬ 
gramme and the amphitheatre setting was omni¬ 
present. But the Roman amphitheatre in Syracuse 
is overshadowed in the mind of the architect by the 
Greek theatre; both in the beauty of the latter’s 
plan and environment and in the performance which 
took place therein. The tragedies of the stage were 
subjective and intellectual; those of the arena were 
objective and sensual. But real tragedies were ob¬ 
jectified in the great cavern not far from the site of 
the theatre. This cave is known as the Ear of 
Dionysius, where even a whisper was conveyed 
Hi 


CLUB PAPERS 

throughout iis^vastness to the concealed though lis¬ 
tening ears of the tyrant. It was not safe for a 
prisoner in that cave to whisper other than compli¬ 
ments for his tyrantship. Underground Syracuse 
is interesting, and not the least of the interest is 
centered in the Catacombs of San Giovanni which, 
we are told, far exceed in extent those of Rome. 
Here in the subterranean chambers Paul, the great 
Apostle, was said by our guide to have preached. I 
missed the service by nearly nineteen hundred years. 
I ran across PauPs tracks again some weeks later up 
on Mars’ Hill in Athens 3 of which more anon. 

In the underground corridors beneath the Capu¬ 
chin Monastery in Palermo, burials have been the 
order up to quite recently. Bodies are exposed in 
grotesque and humorous attitudes; at least they 
seemed humorous to me. The forms and faces were 
as remote in my mind from anything that ever lived 
as are the marbles, bronzes or wax figures in mu¬ 
seums. If we could be sure that at some future time 
we were to be as amusing and interesting to posterity 
as these chaps are to us, we might well feel that we 
had not lived altogether in vain 5 though, perhaps, 
consciously being a messenger of joy rather than 
being the unconscious object of mirth lies at the root 
of satisfaction in living and dying. 

The narrow crooked streets of modern Syracuse 
were teeming with life. Four and five storied build- 
142 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


ings flanked the lanes. Every window had a bal¬ 
cony and every balcony had from one to five occu¬ 
pants who smiled down upon us as we passed 
beneath. Perhaps we were interesting to them in 
life as the remote ancestors of their neighbors in Pa¬ 
lermo were to us in death; and perhaps after the 
same fashion — that is, as something though some¬ 
what resembling humans yet far detached from 
their own manner of life and thought. And, indeed, 
if our party of tourists looked to the native Al¬ 
gerians, Tunisians, Syracusians, Turks, Athenians, 
and so on, as conducted parties of my own country¬ 
men looked to me as I saw them hurried through 
galleries and churches and museums, when I was a 
leisurely student of architecture in foreign lands 
fifty years ago, I can quite understand why these 
peoples should regard us — as all but the most en¬ 
lightened of us still regard them — as an altogether 
inferior race of beings. As for us, the mere fact that 
we are so assiduously seeking culture would seem to 
prove that we possess it not. 

With all their cultural seeking, and whatever 
their cultural background, there are tourists who, 
if they knew that Hagia Sophia existed, did not and, 
having seen it, still do not know wherein it differs 
from St. Mark’s or the Baths of Caracalla; or 
wherein the Parthenon differs from the Christian 
Science Church or the Carnegie Library or the 
143 


CLUB PAPERS 


bruised or broken Bank of their home town. What 
is the reaction of such in the presence of the great 
buildings of the world or of the great facts of his¬ 
tory! Does the blank mind remain a blank in spite 
of the shadows thrown athwart it by realities great 
or small? I am quite convinced that it does so re¬ 
main. I am at heart an Ancient Greek 5 I feel the 
inevitableness of fate. I feel that the mind which 
was blank at birth will forever remain blank; the 
mind which was imbued with imagination at birth 
will feed and thrive upon the imaginative; the mind 
which was stolid at birth will remain stolid; the 
mind which was receptive at birth may develop re¬ 
ceptivity ; the mind which was creative will continue 
under normal conditions to be creative. To culture 
must be added experience. I would not say that in 
order to get the most out of an object or experience 
the mind previously must have been saturated by 
all knowledge concerning it; but through knowl¬ 
edge the mind may be delicately sensitized so that 
impressions of reality shall register clearly and 
cleanly. Certain it is that no one can know all that 
is to be known of an aesthetic experience or of a work 
of art until he has undergone the one or beheld the 
other. All the descriptions in the world or all the 
pictures in all the galleries cannot take the place of 
reality even to the sensitized mind. It was acting, 
too, on this assumption that I visited Hagia Sophia 
144 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


and the Acropolis as well as the Temples of Egypt 
and other great monuments. These, even in ruin¬ 
ous state, must be seen, must make their own direct 
appeal if ever I were to know them; for seen even 
in ruinous or unkempt condition they would help 
the imagination to paint them as they really were 
and are. 

What is the connection between Hagia Sophia and 
the classical world other than the mere fact that a 
Roman Emperor had a church built to embellish his 
eastern capital. The connection lies deeper than 
that; it is not Rome carried over into Byzantium; 
it is the spirit of Ancient Greece touching to life 
forms intrinsically Roman. It is an actual demon¬ 
stration of what Rome might have produced had 
she been able to see beneath the superficial aspect of 
Greek beauty. It is a demonstration of what Greek 
aestheticism might have done for the Roman system 
had Rome desired her Greek artisans to do more 
than to apply Greek forms decoratively to the sur¬ 
face of Roman structures. Lisle March Phillipps 
called Hagia Sophia “ the Greek criticism of Roman 
construction.” In its structure the arch and vault 
function perfectly. Thrust counterbalances thrust 
in living structure rather than being absorbed in im¬ 
mense and inert masses of masonry. Outside the 
purely engineering structures like the aqueducts, the 
Roman arch and vault functioned merely as form. 
H5 


CLUB PAPERS 

It was as though the form were carved out of solid 
masses of integral masonry so bulky that structural 
stresses were absorbed and entirely lost. But in 
Hagia Sophia vault springs from pier or sustaining 
vault in a system instinct with life. One within the 
enclosure is not depressed by dominating mass bear¬ 
ing down upon him; but, rather, the spirit is lifted 
by soaring surfaces which have encompassed space 
and which through a subtle art have made vastness 
more vast — immensity more immense. One might 
almost say that Hagia Sophia did for structural 
space what the telescope has done for astronomical 
space. It is the cool, calm, inevitable logic of the 
Greek aesthetic mind directed into emotional chan¬ 
nels and applied to Roman forms which links Con¬ 
stantinople indissolubly to the classical world. 

In miles and hours, as measured by modern 
means of transportation, Constantinople is not far 
remote from Athens, Hagia Sophia from the Par¬ 
thenon. But though short the distance in time and 
space vast is the difference in forms; though vast the 
difference in forms single is the spirit which ani¬ 
mates. The Oriental cast of Hagia Sophia and of its 
environment, contrasting with the Occidental cast of 
the Parthenon and its environment, seems upon 
superficial glance to cloud the unity of spirit; but 
penetrating thought will bring the picture into focus, 
and the basic principle underlying both will be seen 
146 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


to be the development of character through the in¬ 
terplay of internal and external forces — the inter¬ 
pretation of human character in terms of structural 
stress and strain. The philosophy which underlies 
is different in the two, the aims or ideals to be 
achieved are diverse, but the spiritual medium is the 
same. Never had it manifested itself on earth, ac¬ 
cording to the best of available data, until given sub¬ 
stance by the Early Greek. It was not to appear 
again, in the West at least, until the downfall of the 
Roman Empire; until the collapse of a system which 
expressed itself in terms of power and luxury, and 
which sought, as already indicated, to mask its per¬ 
haps unconsciously acknowledged aesthetic impo¬ 
tence in the applied, and generally misapplied, 
forms of Greek Art. 

Egypt and Greece had the same structural system 
— the post and beam — and there the resemblance 
ended j for the idealism and philosophies of the races 
were different, and the expression in a sincere and 
single minded people, such as both were, had to be 
different — and in consonance with the racial and 
national life. There is not a particle of structural 
symbolism in any Egyptian temple j in the Parthe¬ 
non there is nothing else, except as the sculpture 
goes to enforce the lesson which the structural sym¬ 
bolism teaches. In Hagia Sophia we have, expressed 
in structure, the soul of humanity lost in the unity 
H7 


CLUB PAPERS 

of the Infinite. In the Parthenon we have, ex¬ 
pressed in structure, the individual developing the 
highest character possible to man become a god in 
his calm, measured resistance to a down-pressing 
fate which never masters him, but which he himself 
finally masters through the attainment of character 
made perfect — made perfect not through outside 
ministrations or external aid, but through indomi¬ 
table selfhood. In both cases — in Hagia Sophia 
the merging of the soul in the Infinite, in the Par¬ 
thenon the battle of the individual, body, mind and 
spirit, with fate — the expression is in terms of 
rarest beauty 5 otherwise it would not be Greek. It 
was the Greek who formulated his universe in terms 
of the Good, the True and the Beautiful 5 indulging 
in no anti-climax in placing beauty last. Beauty is 
the soul of Art 5 goodness and truth are its body — 
its media. 

As I have already indicated I am at heart an 
Ancient Greek. For that reason I feel inclined to 
question the validity of the remark interjected by 
the reporter who supplied us with the text of Paul’s 
sermon on Mars’ Hill. That remark, which makes 
up Verse 21, Chapter XVII of “ The Acts ” in the 
New Testament, King James Version, is as follows: 
“ For all the Athenians, and strangers which were 
there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to 
tell or to hear some new thing.” Leaving out of 
148 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


count the development of Greek Art from the 
archaic forms to the perfection of the Parthenon, 
that statement does not tally with the facts which 
called forth Paul’s oration. The Greeks were as¬ 
siduously worshiping Gods which they had been 
worshiping down through the centuries. These 
Athenians must have been spending some of their 
time at that or they would not have so stirred Paul. 
But Paul’s first words, found in verses 22 and 23 of 
the same Version, show the Oriental’s lack of com¬ 
prehension of the Greek character and idealism — 
that is if the words have been properly translated 
and handed on to us, which possibly they have not. 
As in the case of his preaching in the Catacombs, I 
was on the ground too late to get the words from 
Paul’s lips and to catch the expression of his face 
as he uttered them. King James’s translators made 
him say: “ Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all 
things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by 
and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with 
this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. 
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare 
I unto you.” It is with the words quoted, and then 
only insofar as they misinterpret the Greek char¬ 
acter, that I am at present concerned. The new 
Version substitutes or permits the substitution of the 
word religious for superstitious 3 but I hardly be¬ 
lieve that Paul used either. Nothing could be too 
149 


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religious for Paul, while degrees of superstition 
would not have worried him. What he did perceive 
in the Greeks, if he perceived anything at all out of 
the ordinary, was an intense intellectual inquisitive¬ 
ness. Had he understood the Greeks, and I imagine 
he understood them better than his reporters and 
their translators did, he could have said something 
like this: “ Ye men of Athens, I perceive that to¬ 
ward all things you display a deep intellectual curi¬ 
osity and, I may say, a rare breadth of mind. For 
as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an 
altar with this inscription: £ TO AN UNKNOWN 
GOD.’ ” (So the new Version has it — AN UN¬ 
KNOWN GOD.) Had he really known the 
Greeks he would not have continued; “ Whom 
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto 
you,” for he would have known that that altar to 
an unknown God was the shrine at which the 
stranger within the gates was at liberty, without let 
or hindrance, to worship his own individual deity 
who, being unknown to the Athenians, was not wor¬ 
shiped ignorantly or otherwise by them. The set¬ 
ting up of that shrine in Athens was characteristic 
of the Greeks’ broad-minded tolerance and liberal¬ 
ism. What they found of the good, the true, and 
the beautiful in the religion or philosophy of these 
strangers they adopted, having filtered it through 
the alembic of their own thought; but they did not 
150 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


coerce the stranger or force their ideas upon him. 
The so-called Christian religion and the Moham¬ 
medan forced their dogmas and doctrines upon non- 
conforming sects within, and upon the stranger, by 
fire and the sword, by the inquisition and torture. 
St. Paul and his followers had little of sweetness and 
light to bestow upon those Athenians who “ igno¬ 
rantly worshiped! ” 

Even the colors and the contours of the classical 
landscape induce philosophical reveries on art and 
life; and, paradoxically enough, the classical land¬ 
scape draws one away from the contemplation of the 
abstract and sets up before him the image of the 
concrete in such alluring fashion that his eye through 
sheer and sensuous delight must needs dwell upon it. 
The golden rose tints of the columns of the Parthe¬ 
non, as one stands within that ruined edifice, draw 
the mind’s eye from the life and thought of a far 
off day and focus the eye of flesh on the purple hills 
beyond and on the distant silver sea. The marbles 
of the entablature are projected in almost translucent 
mass against the limpid cerulean of a sky which is 
flecked with wisps of cloud truly translucent, edged 
here with fleeting gold and there with purple and 
again with shimmering silver as if to bring into rare 
harmony the elements — Sea and Earth and Sky. 
These are given meaning and worth by the presence 
of the works of man. The eternal rhythms of the 

151 


CLUB PAPERS 

Universe are meaningless and incomprehensible to 
man until fixed in forms of Art through the work¬ 
ings of the human hand and brain impelled by those 
eternal and vibrant rhythms; until man through Art 
has encompassed space as in Hagia Sophia and fixed 
the limits of spiritual expansion as in the Parthenon. 

As the sky we saw beyond and above the columns 
on the Acropolis was flecked with clouds, so the sea 
was flecked with islands, misty and unreal in the dis¬ 
tance, solidifying without loss of mystery upon ap¬ 
proach. These islands of the Aegean and also of the 
Western seas have been the subject of song and of 
romance ever since song issued from human lips or 
romance entered the human breast j and both hap¬ 
pened very long ago. All this glamor of romance 
casts a spell over the traveler from the West and he 
yearns to transplant this beauty of landscape and 
building to his home land. But there the skies are 
not the same and the purple shadows do not so blend 
into the misty amber of the atmosphere. The im¬ 
portation of Egyptian or Oriental forms or spirit 
into our own land with all its Occidental background 
is inexcusable j the introduction of Greek forms is, 
in the light of our past, understandable j the intro¬ 
duction of the Greek spirit would be beneficial, per¬ 
haps would be our salvation in Art and help us to 
solve that inferiority complex which, whether we 
152 


THE CLASSICAL LANDS 


are conscious of it or not, we, as shown by our works, 
permit to govern and control us. As a man does so 
is he — not as a man says. If we are a superior race 
we will show it by freedom of thought, of life, of 
expression j freedom not from the good in others, 
from that truth in others which is applicable to us, 
but freedom from conventions which have grown up 
around an unintelligent use of forms, an unintelli¬ 
gent application of formulae. 

A visit to the classical lands will be an inspiration 
to one who knows the past and can view not only the 
past but the present in the light of that knowledge; 
to one (and there may well be such) whose spiritual 
insight will permit or compel him to see beneath the 
surface into the heart of things; to comprehend why 
a Greek was a Greek, why an Egyptian was an Egyp¬ 
tian, why a Roman was a Roman; and why and how 
he, himself, can be himself. I am loath to believe 
that there are not many to whom such understand¬ 
ing has come in the course of every day cultural ex¬ 
perience. I am forced to believe that there are many 
among those who have made a tour of the classical 
lands, including even some who have made intensive 
study of classical architecture, to whom such under¬ 
standing neither will nor can come. But to him who 
is possessed of a native understanding and a native 
instinct for beauty a tour of the Classical Lands, 
153 


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culminating in a visit to Athens and the Acropolis, 
will enlarge that understanding and will enhance 
the native capacity for the perception and apprehen¬ 
sion of beauty both in its physical and its spiritual 
aspects. 


154 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 



f 

SOME STILL PROFESS TO BELIEVE THAT THE EARTH IS ELAT 
BUT MOST OF US LONG SINCE HAVE LEFTTHAT BELIEF FLAT 

156 





ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 
I 

I N ANCIENT times there was a widespread be¬ 
lief that the Earth was flat; that day accom¬ 
panied the sun on its journey across the heavens 
from its emergence, fresh and dripping, from the 
Eastern Seas to its dip, worn out and weary, into the 
Seas in the West. Darkness lay upon the Earth 
until the sun, all refreshed, arose again from its 
nocturnal bath. Some even had it that the sun died 
each night in the West and that a new sun was born 
in the East each morning. But Astronomy (and, as 
we like to believe, common sense as well) teaches 
us that we see the same sun appearing in the morn¬ 
ing, if we are up and about, that we saw disappear 
in the West at nightfall. We, you and I, bend a 
sort of superior smile, perhaps a bit derisive, on those 
who held this old belief; for science has taught us 
that u the Earth is round like an orange;” that it is 
not a stationary, flat plane over and under which the 
“ sun moves,” but that it is a spherical object itself 
moving around a fixed sun — fixed, that is, in rela¬ 
tion to the Earth; an object turning on its own axis, 
157 


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segments of the surface successively coming into the 
light and receding into the shade, causing the phe¬ 
nomenon of day and night. 

I said that you and I bend a sort of superior smile 
on those who held this ancient belief; though what 
lies behind the smile is, in reality, more akin to pity ; 
not, perhaps, so much for those who in times of ig¬ 
norance held the belief as for those who, today, with 
knowledge laying its treasures at their doors, spurn 
its offerings and hug their delusions. I may say 
that, as for me, this feeling of pity towards the enter¬ 
tainers of this particular belief extends to those who 
have entertained and still entertain other of the 
world’s great superstitions and delusions; delusions 
which once held mighty sway, and still in a way are 
potent, in the domains of human thought, aspira¬ 
tion and endeavor. 

I would not wish to seem blindly intolerant of cer¬ 
tain beliefs which have been, and certain others 
which now are, held by mankind. On the whole, as 
these unfold themselves before my inner vision, I 
find them in a way pathetic and, frequently, amus¬ 
ing. They become intolerable, and I intolerant, 
only as their devotees present them, each as the sole 
channel of individual and social salvation. Beliefs, 
in general, are conditioned by mental and spiritual 
factors rooted deep in the far distant past. Differ¬ 
ing in character, like the onions, the turnips and the 
158 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


lilies in the garden, some men are born to believe, 
some to doubt, others to reject all belief. All draw 
their belief-life from the soil of the past. The free 
man is he who can rise superior to background — to 
the vapors of the soil — and breathe the pure air 
above. As for that belief in the flatness of the Earth, 
a few misguided and not-to-be-informed mortals 
still hold to it. But, in spite of a few individual and 
sporadic cases, a world which once held pretty gen¬ 
erally to the belief has left it flat. 

Now, that particular belief probably antedated 
religion and the gods. It arose from primitive ob¬ 
servations of physical phenomena by primitive 
minds. But even the primitive mind — possibly 
because it is primitive — is not satisfied for long 
with the seemingly obvious explanation of externali¬ 
ties. There must be a mystical interpretation to 
satisfy the mind which, through evolution out of 
seeming nothingness, is becoming spiritualized even 
primitively j which is entering the first stages of a 
spiritual consciousness. The flat Earth, with the air 
above and the waters underneath and the all-pene¬ 
trating ether, was soon to be peopled in men’s minds 
with beings celestial and demoniac; spirits or sprites 
soon were to inhabit every physical form and mani¬ 
festation. Phoebus Apollo drove his chariot athwart 
the sky. Heracles cleaned up some dirty messes; 
and he, too, being a sun god, in conjunction with the 
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corn gods, the gods of the vine, the gods of the sow¬ 
ing and of the harvest, the river and innumerable 
other gods of mental and physical states, made the 
Earth a safe, wholesome, productive and altogether 
interesting place in which to dwell. Ancient man 
at one time or another believed in all these gods; 
and the various and varied forms of religion grew 
out of a desire to propitiate them. These gods were 
just as big and potent, as moral and divine, as the 
men who made them — and no more so. The gods 
of the tribe were greater, more complex and more 
powerful only in so far as the tribal composite ex¬ 
celled the individual’s portrait. For man makes his 
gods; and in my way of thinking, there is no god 
interested in man personally which man himself did 
not create. 

However, man did not create that active and ex¬ 
ternal principle, that creative energy which had no 
beginning and will have no end, which we may call 
the spirit of life. The spirit of life is just as personal 
to — just as jealous of — the amoeba as of man; of 
the dog as of the Doge; of the insect worker in the 
coral grove as of the prophets of the Almighty 
themselves. 

The authors of the stories of the Creation in the 
Biblical Book of Genesis knew of these mystical be¬ 
ings with which the ancients had peopled the Earth 
and of the gods which had been set up. These 
160 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 

story writers, however, belonged to a spiritually ad¬ 
vanced race whose own god was single, indivisible 
and undying. To this race its god was the One god. 
He had all the powers, attributes, qualities and char¬ 
acteristics of all the other gods put together $ all the 
other gods and demons. He was compassionate, 
cruel, merciful, malicious, gentle, jealous, loving, 
vindictive all in one. He had to fight for his own 
against all the other gods of all the other races; not 
denying their existence but placing them in a lesser 
category. It was simpler and more satisfactory for 
the race which conceived the notion of a single god¬ 
head to worship and to propitiate one god than a 
dozen. It was a step in the direction of an orderly 
theistic evolution $ a conservation of the energy of 
worship, quite in line with that genius for organiza¬ 
tion and consolidation which is characteristic of this 
race. And this step was taken long before the story 
of creation was written down. It supplied the ma¬ 
terial for that story. These other gods ministered 
but narrowly to the processes of life — the god of 
the vine for drink, the god of the corn for food; the 
god of the flocks for food and raiment and shelter. 
You may readily discern how important to the shep¬ 
herd tribes was the god of the lamb — the tribes 
which repudiated the “ Lamb ” of god. The god 
of the sun ministered to health and fertility, as when 
the life creating rays entered the womb of the Virgin 
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Earth and encountered the fructifying influence of 
the gods of the rain and the dew. Belief in the mul¬ 
tiplicity of gods waned and the one god stood for a 
time in the ascendant. The story in Genesis indi¬ 
cates quite clearly that that which was translated or 
perverted into the One God was in reality the spirit 
of life — the spirit of creation. “ In the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth.” He divided 
the land from the seas. He filled the sea with fishes 
and told them to multiply. He covered the earth 
with grass and told it to grow. He set in the 
heaven (the Sun) a greater and (the Moon) a lesser 
light. He told the earth to bring forth plant and 
animal and told them both to fructify and replenish 
the earth. He created man — male and female 
created he them. And he blessed them and said 
unto them: “ Be fruitful, and multiply, and replen¬ 
ish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over 
every living thing.” Up to the word “ subdue ” the 
spirit of life was speaking — there god took up the 
strain: and man, whether he would or no, has fol¬ 
lowed the injunctions. Indeed man has gone so far 
in subduing the earth, and in subduing the heaven 
also, although that was not “ nominated in the 
bond,” that he has discovered laws and natural prin¬ 
ciples that have led him to question the scientific ac¬ 
curacy of the story and the processes set down 
therein; but have not led him to question the exist- 
162 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


ence of the eternal spirit of life and its instrumen¬ 
tality in the process of creation and maintenance, not 
only of the heaven and the earth and the sun and 
moon and stars of the story, but of the great cosmic 
universe in which the Sun in Genesis and the earth 
upon which it was told to shine are but as a filmy 
speck of dust upon the garment of infinity. The 
Earth in Genesis had not acquired the dignity of a 
planetj it was just the earth! One can leave with¬ 
out regret a belief in the story in Genesis as a recital 
of time and space actualities and leave it without 
dimming the splendor which envelops one’s glori¬ 
ous vision of the spirit of life. 

Although the Hebraic story of the Creation is an 
integral part of the Christian Bible and its accept¬ 
ance is regarded by the majority of true believers as 
fundamental to Christian belief, yet all types of 
Christian believers repudiate the One god idea as 
set forth therein and uncompromisingly stressed 
throughout the Old Testament. The monotheistic 
idea was good enough for the Hebrews of the old 
dispensation j but to suit their own purposes the Jew¬ 
ish founders of the Christian religion cut up their 
god into three equal parts with inter-relations so in¬ 
volved as to lead to inextricable confusion in the 
minds of such Christian believers as have minds 
capable of normal functioning. So that the mono¬ 
theistic idea, worked out by the Jews with so much of 
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love, poetry and human understanding in a world 
sunken in the mire of pantheism, is left behind by a 
Christianity under the domination of a church which 
began almost immediately upon its establishment to 
lapse back into paganism and into unadulterated 
polytheism in its worship of Saints and such like 
minor deities. And now in this enlightened age, if 
such it may be called, comes Christian Science nurs¬ 
ing the hope that there may be another entity added 
to the Great God Triune; a fifth part it would really 
be for Roman Catholicism already has added a 
fourth — The Queen of Heaven. And would it 
not seem that the Romanists have reason on their 
side? The mother of a god must of a surety be a 
god; and the wife of a god must be one in substance 
with him if gods are to be examples to men; and, 
too, if the doctrines of the Church are valid both as 
regards the immaculate conception of the Virgin and 
the Holy state of Matrimony. 

Now, while in contemplating the effect of all this 
on human mentality a sense of deep tragedy forces 
itself upon us, yet the divine element of comedy is 
not absent; and this element invests the atmosphere 
which surrounds the conception and development of 
dogmatic religion from the beginning. The prog¬ 
ress of the concept is intensely interesting and alto¬ 
gether logical from the unreasoned and primitive 
idea of fending against the distressful acts of the 
164 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


elements to the great modern engines of moral 
force; for every believer in every cult today con¬ 
siders his religion to be a power for good — an 
engine of moral force. What basis can there be for 
such belief! Indeed what use is there for morals in 
any religion which embraces a scheme of salvation! 
Creeds save — not morals! It must come as an 
awful shock to many a believer in many a scheme of 
redemption to be told that salvation does not rest 
entirely in his fold; and it would be difficult indeed 
to convince many a follower of the Christian faith 
that untold millions of sincere human beings were 
morally and spiritually saved ere the Christian 
Church came into existence and that millions now 
are leading moral and spiritual lives without the 
benefit of Clergy! 


II 

To know something of religious belief one must 
look in on the beginnings of the gods. There were 
and are as many religions, really, as there are gods; 
and, as we have seen, as many gods as there are peo¬ 
ple who make them. In popular estimation religion 
has somewhat to do with man’s relationship to god; 
or a man’s relationship to his god. In matter of 
definition the Bible gives little to lay hold upon. 
This is all: In James i, 27, we read, “ Pure religion 
and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To 

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visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and 
to keep himself [whoever “himself” may be!] 
unspotted from the world.” Now the really in¬ 
teresting thing about this passage is not the definition 
of religion but that the idea of duality is present; 
before God and the Father — not God, the Father. 

Primitive man found nature unfriendly, even 
hostile. The elements, animals and, worse than 
either, other men were his enemies to be repulsed, 
battled and guarded against. Man was puny in the 
presence of nature, and he knew it. (Men know it 
now in the presence of earthquake, fire and flood.) 
He must get these things on his side. He used then 
the same argument, the same process of reasoning 
that the deist uses now; in fact the deistic idea is a 
development from the primitive. The very exist¬ 
ence of a universe, says the deist, proclaims the pres¬ 
ence of a controlling mind within. (God is all and 
in all!) The existence of objects, animate and in¬ 
animate, in nature, said primeval man, being unable 
as yet to grasp the broader concept, proclaims in each 
the presence of a special demon or controlling spirit. 
A stone falls and kills or injures a man; an evil 
spirit within the stone actuated the deed. The spirit 
must be appeased; must be propitiated. A tree falls 
breaking a man’s limbs (in any connection but this 
I would say legs); an evil spirit has impelled the 
166 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


tree to this action. The man has no conception of 
the accidental. It is nothing to him that the tree 
broke its own limbs too. That may have been in 
part punishment for its meanness to the man. The 
spirit of the tree must be reconciled to man and ap¬ 
peased so that no other tree shall cut a similar caper. 
And so down the line through objects animate and 
inanimate, beings sensate and insensate. Life was 
just one grand struggle to reconcile all these gods 
and sprites and demons of earth, water and air to the 
presence of puny man. That was religion j and in 
essence still is. This phase had to do mainly with 
man’s physical status and his need for bodily protec¬ 
tion ; but now another element enters. The belly has 
to be filled — for a race, like an army, travels on its 
stomach — and the malign influences which are ex¬ 
erting themselves to thwart man in the exercise of 
that pleasing though necessary formality have to be 
met and overcome. Puny man distrusts his own 
powers, so he invents gods. The hawk-headed god 
will be his friend in the air; the fox-headed god will 
aid with his wiles on the land; the crocodile god will 
keep things going swimmingly in the water. So the 
gods came into being, invented by man to minister 
to man’s needs. And the god of the corn — his body 
was broken and eaten 5 and the god of the vine — he 
was bruised and his life blood drunk 5 both that man 
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might have his belly filled and himself saved — to 
a life prolonged and full of trouble! So the Sacra¬ 
ment of the Eucharist came into vogue and has been 
a symbol of man’s salvation and regeneration from 
the dawn of religious consciousness to this day. 
That was religion; and in essence still is. 

And now a third element enters j a third galaxy 
of gods is to be invented and propitiated; and super¬ 
natural aid is to be invoked through magic, through 
application of formulae, through prayer and incan¬ 
tation. The falling stone has not always killed its 
victim — it may only sorely have bruised him. The 
overgenerous gods of the corn and vine may have 
permitted their devotee to overtax his stomach, and 
there is a pain in his little inside. To whom is one 
to go for relief — why to the gods of course j and so 
man makes more gods; Aesculapius — the fiery ser¬ 
pent in the wilderness — Mr. Dowie — Mrs. 
Eddy 5 and men’s bodies are healed. This was re¬ 
ligion and in essence still is. Somehow it never 
seemed to occur to primitive man to be cautious, to 
avoid danger j to irrigate or to sprinkle when mois¬ 
ture was not forthcoming from the skies; to avoid 
overeating when the gods had too bountifully 
spread his table. He was not to exercise self-re¬ 
straint or self-control but was to seek relief from 
the gods j even if he had to make them for that pur¬ 
pose. 


168 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


Now comes the fourth element in religion. This 
has to do with conscious life beyond the grave and 
appears in two phases; that of a spiritual continuance 
and that of bodily resurrection. Here again man is 
impotent within himself, and must seek the aid of 
the gods. Not only must he importune the old 
gods, but again, in the matter of bodily resurrection, 
he must invent new ones. I think the idea of a life 
beyond life — I prefer that form for if life con¬ 
tinues into the beyond there really is no such thing 
as death, and “ grave ” is but an empty word, how¬ 
ever gorged it may be with dead men’s bones — I 
think that the idea of conscious life beyond life arose 
in the minds of men of extended ego (who, perhaps, 
after all constitute a majority of mankind) men who 
think they have been of so great importance to their 
fellow-men in this world that their non-appearance 
in the world to come (which, too, they have invented 
for their own self-satisfaction) would be a serious, 
indeed an inestimable loss to the infinite host of the 
redeemed. These are those who crave future exist¬ 
ence in some sort. Those who crave a bodily resur¬ 
rection must be those who have exhausted in this life 
all the possibilities of the body along at least one line 
of human accomplishment and wish an infinitude of 
time in which to perfect the body in other and an 
infinitude of arts; or they are those who “ stuck on 
their shapes ” wish to disport their figures on the 


CLUB PAPERS 

shining sands of the golden sea of Eternity. There 
must be some reason why one should crave a 
conscious existence which shall endure — and be 
endured — throughout everlasting infinitudes of 
time 5 but I cannot divine the reason and the merest 
imaginative contemplation of such possibility stuns 
me quite. But we were speaking of the gods 
through whose intervention this, to me, highly 
tragic end is to be attained. It is the life and death 
of the gods which give man hope and furnish ex¬ 
ample. There were pre-Christian gods a-plenty 
who were raised from the dead. A noteworthy case 
was that of the Egyptian god, Osiris. He was slain 
and his body hacked to pieces by the powers of Evil 
in the person of a wicked brother who scattered the 
fragments in widely separated localities throughout 
the then known world where they were assiduously 
sought, especially by the women, and reassembled 
for resurrection. It is interesting to note the promi¬ 
nence of women in the stories of resurrections. Is it 
because women are the more credulous as well as the 
more emotional? A tomb was erected on the spot 
where each individual part of the dismembered body 
of Osiris was found (thirteen in all if my memory 
serves). But one part (the fourteenth or the first 
— depending upon one’s attitude towards a certain 
philosophy of life, or upon which end of the series 
one reckons from) one part, much to the distress of 
170 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


the women, never was recovered; and a wooden 
image of that part had to be substituted when the 
body of the god finally was resurrected. 

The belief in the resurrection of Osiris may be 
called obsolete j but the story was influential in shap¬ 
ing the Christian doctrine of the resurrection and its 
implications as regards the future life of men. The 
major differences serve to connect the two notions 
the more closely. It was through the faithful min¬ 
istrations of his son, Horus, that the body of Osiris 
was resurrected 5 and it was only through the repeti¬ 
tion, in the presence of Osiris, the judge and king 
of the dead, of a magic formula transmitted to a 
dead father by a faithful living son, to whom 
Horus had imparted the knowledge, that the dead 
father could be raised into eternal life. The pain¬ 
ful efforts of countless millions of faithful sons, 
emulating the deed of one living son of a slain and 
resurrected god, were necessary to the future exist¬ 
ence of countless millions of fathers. This must 
have seemed like prodigious waste of energy to the 
simple inventors of the Christian theology who 
made the one and only slain and resurrected Son of 
a god do the arduous work with which the followers 
of Osiris had burdened the countless sons of men. 
The Christian way is so much easier! While still 
alive just to say u I believe ” to mumbled words in 
an unknown tongue on the lips of a priest — and, 
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in due course, the body is resurrected into eternal 
life. The “ Son of man ” replaces the sons of men! 

That romantic cycle, the life, death and resurrec¬ 
tion of the Corn god, does not contribute much of 
hope to him who would have the identical physical 
body resurrected. The old body dies, rots in the 
earth, and a new body springs up — in fact, many 
bodies spring up from the seed of the old. What 
that would signify in populating Paradise I leave to 
minds endowed with a mathematical imagination. 
Today we regard the stories of the life, death, burial 
and resurrection of these ancient gods as symbolic 
and as in the realm of poetical and legendary ro¬ 
mance. It remained for the Christian Church, 
within historic times, to produce a god whose bodily 
resurrection was made actual, that is, was testified 
to as in the realm of historical fact; and the doctrine 
established that because the body of one member of 
the Triune god was resurrected, the man who ex¬ 
presses a belief in that triple god through certain 
prescribed orthodox practices and along established 
orthodox lines, and no others, that man shall be re¬ 
ceived into glory in his natural body — resurrected 
or translated as the case may be. It is all in the 
Apostles’ Creed which stared down from the church 
walls into my infant eyes and later into the eyes of 
a youth who saw in it only a fairy tale for half 
grown-ups. To the youth there lay more of human 
172 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


interest and adventure in the story of Jack and the 
Beanstalk. The story of the “ nativity ” amid lowly 
surroundings, against a deeply emotional back¬ 
ground, was genuinely human and appealing. Be¬ 
ing myself a child in a beautiful home I knew that 
the home, to be really a home, needed children; but 
having no experience of the world I did not know 
how frantically (and as I now believe, with what 
little reason) the world craved gods. On a wave 
of religious enthusiasm which inundated our com¬ 
munity when I was under ten years of age, I was 
floated into probationary membership in the Meth¬ 
odist Episcopal church, but something within me 
warned me to slow up and to accept no creed ir¬ 
revocably. Some time thereafter I learned of nu¬ 
merous major gods who had been born in a stable 
or cave or underground, which mean one and the 
same thing; and who having tried to save mankind 
had, “ from the foundation of the world,” been 
slain for their pains. Because these gods had died 
that men might live I have read their stories with 
reverence. Perhaps with deeper reverence and 
fuller understanding have I read the story of Jesus 
of Nazareth for I could visualize him very clearly, 
it seemed to me, against the background which was 
painted for me in childhood. I have studied the 
genealogy of his male progenitor — not in this con¬ 
nection the Father with the capital “ F ” but Joseph, 
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who is entire’y lower case agate in the eyes of the 
church, and in its light stands a vivid picture of 
the idealism, of the poetical and human side of the 
Nazarene. The magical deeds and words which 
were incorporated into the story of his life and death, 
by people interested in proving him a god, impress 
me not. 

Fundamental facts in nature and human nature 
persist and are permanent. It is only the forms of 
belief grown up around them which change or are 
discarded. Thus, belief in the personality of Ceres 
has died, but the fact that nature is bountiful, and 
that mankind depends for its continued subsistence 
on that bounty, still remains. The continuing exist¬ 
ence of life depends on the continuing processes of 
production and reproduction, through participation 
in which sentient life finds joy. But the belief 
that a worshipful recognition of the god Apollo or 
the goddess Aphrodite is necessary to the consum¬ 
mation of that joy in man, any more than in the dog, 
has long since vanished. Our present day orgies 
and intimacies are not participated in in the name of 
any god other than our own personal selves. In this 
phase at least, that of possible indulgence in joy, 
man is sufficient unto himself and no longer depend¬ 
ent upon the gods. This present day attitude may 
presage a new era in which man shall be free. The 
free man in his strength relies on himself. The 
174 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


slave and the weakling look for salvation from with¬ 
out. Weakness and fear are the parents of the gods. 

Ill 

There are beliefs which might be divorced from 
religion in the narrow sense of appertaining to man’s 
physical and spiritual dependence upon the gods, 
or upon god, although some minds may, indeed 
will, be inclined, as in everything else, to read re¬ 
ligion into them. These beliefs are changing and 
taking on new aspects as the universe opens its heart 
to the loving inspection of the sincere scientist. One 
of these is the belief that the universe, being an 
orderly affair, must therefore of necessity be the 
product of a single orderly mind. This belief is in 
one aspect a “ hang-over ” from the story of creation 
in Genesis; in another aspect it is comparatively new 
and is acceptable to men who, having rejected the 
idea of a personal god, yet have not allowed their 
minds to travel the course to its logical end. The 
mystic ingredient is potent in their natures and a 
mechanistic or materialistic conception of the uni¬ 
verse is abhorrent to them. Of course any belief, at 
any time, might easily be held by one to whose mind 
the extent and character of the Universe was as 
limited as that in the Bible story, and who could as¬ 
cribe to the Creator absolutely fantastic attributes 
such, for instance, as omnipotence transcending the 
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limitations of time and space — elements co-exist¬ 
ent with energy. But these men are not such. 

Said the kindergarten boy to his amazed, and 
possibly amused, parent who had been trying to 
instill into the mind of the child some idea of the 
greatness of god and evidently had overstressed one 
point: “ Papa, I bet there’s one thing god couldn’t 
do. He couldn’t make a four year old colt in one 
minute.” This was sincerely uttered with no at¬ 
tempt at “ smarty-ness ” for the clear seeing mind 
of the child was not to be lost in the metaphysical 
dust kicked up by and befuddling to his elders. 

Have those who believe in the orderly creative 
mind even slight conception of the bearing of time 
and space upon the problem, time and space in terms 
of Eternity and Infinity? Have they projected their 
minds back into primeval chaos billions upon billions 
of years ere the suns had begun an orderly swing in 
their orbits? They might have found that every¬ 
thing then was movement, helter-skelter movement 
perhaps within that point of energy now known as 
the electron. It is easy for me to believe that the 
spirit of life was active, yes! but where dwelt the de¬ 
tached mind which should bring order out of chaos? 
Not in chaos, surely! Order began when two points 
of energy fell into step and, finding themselves con¬ 
genial, that is that their fundamental vibrations coin¬ 
cided, moved side by side with the same rhythm 3 
17 6 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


or rhythmically opposed themselves to each other. 
Were these points of energy conscious of the 
rhythms in which they moved, were they mutually 
conscious? We may never know. But we do know 
that in all that infinite chaos two particles did unite 
and attracted, or were attracted to, another, to others, 
to billions of like-minded, that is, similarly consti¬ 
tuted ; and matter, which is order, appeared. There 
were an infinity of other particles vibrating in an 
infinity of rhythms, undergoing similar processes 
and — one day — “ violets were born! ” Rhythms 
had tried to harmonize — offspring came, but be¬ 
cause of some lack of compatibility or of co-ordina¬ 
tion in the parental rhythms were still-born, or 
worse, were abortions, if any living thing can be 
abortive in the eyes of the spirit of life. Only ster¬ 
ility would seem to be anathema to that spirit. 

But this is a moral as well as a rhythmic universe, 
as spiritual as it is material. Whence came morals 
and spirituality? Morals may well have entered 
into the scheme when rhythms flowed together and 
kept together and begat sun, satellites and stellar 
systems. After all these eternal ages of a striving 
of like to find like, to beget like, to develop like to 
its supreme stature, is it not quite conceivable, quite 
within the bounds of reason, that there should be 
concord within the species of at least the sentient 
product of the spirit life; a definitely and possibly 
177 


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consciously held and enacted code of morals; and is 
it not quite conceivable, quite within the bounds of 
reason, that when man came with power of articulate 
speech and a hand which could grasp a tool and make 
an implement — is it not quite conceivable, I ask, 
quite within the bounds of reason, that man, rising 
out of animal consciousness into the realm of self- 
consciousness should, within the processes of nature, 
be able to create distinctions between right and 
wrong, to argue about morals, establish premises and 
to draw conclusions and consciously to enact laws for 
the rest of mankind to break? — and this without 
the intervention of some extraneous mystical being 
whom the generality call god, the inferiority com- 
plexed call king, the trustingly expectant call father, 
and around whom the credulous build wondrous 
stories of power and might and wisdom; of jealousy, 
love and hatred, and all the other attributes of the 
gods of all the ages and races! Man has passed in 
a measure the self-conscious period and is entering 
into that of social consciousness; when, at some dis¬ 
tant day, he enters into the domain of cosmic con¬ 
sciousness and becomes a citizen of the cosmic uni¬ 
verse as well as of the world, he will not need for 
individual safety or self-satisfaction to pin his beliefs 
on the gods j on the god of the sowing and the reap¬ 
ing ; of the killing and resurrecting; for he will vi¬ 
brate in the harmonies of the universal rhythms and 
178 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


his spirit will be free; and being life and seeing life 
he shall know the spirit of life as it is. 

When man reaches that beatific stage his mind 
may entertain the possibility of a spirit inherent in 
the electron, the ion, the atom, the molecule — 
hence in matter; a power of active choice which, 
when conditions are propitious, as they plainly ap¬ 
pear to have been in the case of man (and in certain 
other of the animals), shall express itself in terms of 
conscious spirituality. 


IV 

A wise man does not dogmatize too narrowly con¬ 
cerning belief. But one is safe in saying that, in gen¬ 
eral, a capacity for believing is the concomitant of a 
type of mind which is very widespread over the 
habitable portions of the globe. It is a type of mind 
which easily forms attachments but which, seem¬ 
ingly, is incapable of detachment. Years alone do 
not bring the philosophic mind. An innate love of 
truth will start what the years will strengthen in 
minds naturally free from obsessions. An obsession 
of any sort is a horrible thing to contemplate; 
whether it be the religious obsession that the holder 
is on the one divinely appointed track to salvation, 
or the mechanical obsession, quite as divine in its es¬ 
sence, that the holder has mastered the mechanics of 
perpetual motion; each proclaims a closed mind and 
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forestalls the possibility of sane argumentation; each 
precludes the possibility of a sane detachment from 
the vantage point of which things may be viewed in 
their right relationships. Detachment is not to be 
confused with superiority or aloofness, but may be 
regarded as a rock upon which the sane mind can 
stand calm and serene and, with broad sympathy and 
in humility and sincerity, watch the swirling tides of 
eternity sweep by. From this lofty eminence the 
philosophic mind views in its completeness the eter¬ 
nal scene j “ Sees life steadily and sees it whole ” 
and in quiet humor evaluates the local disturbance 
which, at the critical historical moment creates a par¬ 
ticular wave which forms, swells, spends itself and, 
breaking into misty spray, loses itself, not in tranquil 
depths, but on the restless wandering surface of the 
infinite main. It requires a sense of humor in one, 
who, even from this serene height, contemplates the 
cosmic scene in its entirety, that he be not overcome 
with nausea, with a sort of cosmic seasickness, as he 
views the antics and reads the minds of the petty 
creatures whose cockle-shells move without guidance 
with the current upon which, through time and cir¬ 
cumstance, they find themselves cast. 

As for these mariners (I speak of them as mari¬ 
ners for that is how they sing of themselves in their 
hymn-tunes) low visibility prevents them generally 
from seeing the waves and movement about them. 
180 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


Each, therefore, deems his own particular wave to be 
the one great beneficent sea which is bearing him 
mercifully and surely to some snug harbor, to some 
blest haven, where he shall dwell eternally in the di¬ 
vine presence of him who so benignantly stirred up, 
or even created, the sea in the individual traveler’s 
own special behalf. The philosopher on the heights 
sees what is not apparent to these cockle-shell mari¬ 
ners, who, wrapped in the mantle of dogmatic cock¬ 
sureness, scout beneficence in the movement of any 
tide except the one which is bearing them whither 
they think they wish, or are destined, to go. Some of 
these voyagers do sense the fact that, bordering their 
own particular sea, are surfaces upon which others, 
not of their kind, of course, have been or are afloat. 
But these, our wise ones think, are the still surfaces 
of stagnant pools or the turbulently swirling, land¬ 
locked eddies upon which one rests in stupid content, 
or is buffeted about in futile attempts to make a land¬ 
ing. The observer on the heights sees that they all 
— the actively cocksure, the stagnantly content, the 
brutally buffeted, all, man, animal and atom — all 
are out on the one great flowing, swirling, eddying, 
weaving and surging cosmic sea of life, of action, 
passion and emotion, with each and all destined to 
find the same fate$ and each just as apt as any or 
all the others to find in that fate the blissful fruition 
of all desire. 


181 


CLUB PAPERS 

It really does predicate a sense of humor on the 
part of the cosmic observer, and a charitable spirit, 
too, if he can view with equanimity the attitude of 
the human freight in one of these cockle-shells to¬ 
wards that in another up-borne even by the same 
wave and drifting willy-nilly to the same destina¬ 
tion. Because a cockle-shell differs from the con¬ 
ventional in size, shape or color its passenger, there¬ 
fore, must be a heretic and destined to be swamped 
and eternally lost through the goodness of god! 
This attitude extends also towards those other voy¬ 
agers on life’s ocean who have been caught in a to¬ 
tally different eddy. God in his goodness will de¬ 
stroy them! 

In not too humorous a mood, — for pathos, even 
tragedy, as well as humor, lingers near, — let us 
view a little more intimately the status of the human 
freight stowed in the holds of these cockle-shells 
which move without guidance from within and whose 
external guiding force is the momentary turn of the 
current upon which they find themselves cast or 
upon which they wilfully have cast themselves. 
From the philosophic vantage point and in wide per¬ 
spective one may see the finger of the Zeitgeist, of 
each particular Zeitgeist, touching the waters and 
producing the currents which determine the course 
of the cockle-shell. Within that cockle-shell is a 
182 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


human soul with a will which the truth would set 
free. Not far away, at any moment, is the mountain 
of serene detachment rising above the waters; the 
mount from which the whole scene may be viewed 
and where truth may be known. There are many 
dwellers on this mountain, choice spirits of the ages; 
but there is room for many more. Some happy ones 
were born on the shore at the base and achieved the 
summit merely by climbing. Others (are they not 
even happier?) sensing reality near, threw them¬ 
selves into the sea, penetrated the mists and through 
struggle gained the shore and the heights. Mists 
veil thinly the base of the mountain, hiding it from 
the sight of the self-satisfied, the indifferent and the 
fearful; but even through the mists its presence is 
made known to the soul which craves reality. The 
humorous thing, the pathetic thing, to him whose 
vision pierces the veil, is not only that human souls 
should be content to ride the restless waves in these 
cockle-shells, but that one should wittingly leave 
one cockle-shell to cast his lot in another. The hu¬ 
morous thing, the pathetic thing, is that these human 
souls are not mariners directing their own course, 
not even voyagers out for discovery, but just freight 
to be dumped where time, tide and circumstance may 
dictate. To jump from the mountain of serenity 
into a cockle-shell, were such a thing conceivable, 
183 


CLUB PAPERS 


would be tragedy; to jump from one cockle-shell 
into another is just low comedy. It is quite com¬ 
prehensible that one should tire of bobbing about 
and fitfully floating and — sensing that he was get¬ 
ting nowhere, and not enjoying the company any¬ 
way — should seek a craft with a supposedly differ¬ 
ent destination and a more congenial society. But 
why, except that one is aweary, mind and body, and 
plumb tired of wrestling with the spirit, should one 
jump from the cockle-shell of Occidentalism into 
Hinduism, for example. Except to free himself 
from the blessing of being able to think for himself 
and talk directly, if so inclined, with a personal god 
of his own contriving, why should one jump into 
drab Protestantism or into the gaudily draped 
cockle-shell of Roman Catholicism and place him¬ 
self under the domination of a priesthood behind 
which he is permitted now and then to peep at a re¬ 
mote god which the church has set up to scare the 
weakling into being good, if for no more sordid mo¬ 
tives. Except to experience the mild intoxication of 
losing himself in a maze of vague conceits and dis¬ 
torted meanings and to make himself believe that 
he can at all times gratify an appetite for all things 
material and immaterial without shattering consti¬ 
tution or disquieting conscience; and except to fool 
himself into the idea that he is well or living, when 
the world knows that he is sick or dead, why should 
184 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


one jump from anywhere into the cockle-shell of 
Christian Science! 

As one watches this futile jumping from cockle¬ 
shell to cockle-shell, this shifting of beliefs, one be¬ 
comes keenly aware that a belief discarded is not 
always discarded in favor of unbelief; but that for 
some supposed or real compensation, such as lucra¬ 
tive employment, social prestige, the elimination of 
gas from the stomach, or from some sincere reaction 
against environmental conditions, beliefs once more 
or less sincerely cherished are often left and other 
beliefs adopted. 

The restless human soul craves certainty in a 
world in which all at times seems uncertain and seeks 
that certainty in belief or again in negation. But the 
dwellers on the mount of detachment watch in se¬ 
renity a world in which, be the moods of certainty 
or uncertainty, the spirit of life moves, resistlessly 
and inexorably, whether beliefs exist or not. As I 
am an emanation from that spirit I may with pro¬ 
priety set forth my reaction to its movement. I be¬ 
lieve that the spirit of life moves as mysteriously as 
inexorably. That it moves consciously with and 
within and as a concomitant of the physical structure 
of the universe, as, let us say, my spirit moves with 
and within my body, has been suggested by would-be 
scientists whose natures impel toward mysticism. I 
do not imagine that such is the case, but I do not 

185 


CLUB PAPERS 

know — I have as yet no means of knowing. None 
of the gods or messiahs of legend or history seems 
to have known more about that than you or I do — 
at least none of them has told us. (Some such possi¬ 
bility may have been sensed by him who wrote of the 
“god in whom we live and move and have our 
being.”) It may be that the spirit of life is reaching 
outward and upward to achieve that state which we 
call perfection. Sometimes it would seem so and it 
would be a pleasant theory to believe 5 but that it 
cares for me individually or for my person and 
would or could go out of its way to save me, any 
more than would or could an onrushing locomotive 
were I to step, inadvertently or otherwise, in the 
path of its progress, I do not believe 5 that it would 
do it for anybody else I do not believe. I should be 
a fool or worse, — I should qualify with the crimi¬ 
nally insane, — could I believe that the spirit of life 
— right here let us be conventional and say god — 
could I believe that god, because of my belief, would 
deliberately and consciously save me in a petty emer¬ 
gency and just as consciously and deliberately con¬ 
demn to death with slow lingering disease my best 
friend or worst enemy — no matter what I believed. 
And yet many religions, the Christian religion 
among them, are based on that hypothesis 5 the hy¬ 
pothesis that a certain formulated belief will bring 
to one individual safety and salvation through the 
186 


ON BELIEVING AND LEAVING 


conscious act of god, while, by the conscious act of 
the same god, countless other and purer souls are 
eternally damned. I don’t believe it — the human 
race doesn’t believe it — only a few woefully selfish 
individuals, beyond the reach of spiritual grace, be¬ 
lieve it; though multitudes through silence, indiffer¬ 
ence or timidity would seem to subscribe to the doc¬ 
trine. There are some things in religion, in science 
and in art which a sane man may well believe; there 
are other things which a man may as sanely leave. 
Life has blessed each of us with some quantity of 
choice. Some do, and the others should, have within 
themselves the will and power to exercise that choice 
and to exercise it without fear — asking no favors of 
the gods. 


187 










































































































































































































































































































































































































































ARTIST AND MODEL 



,p 


INTO THIS CHAMBER OF TWLIMAGlMAnON HE. TOURS CERTAIN INGREDIENTS 
190 


ARTIST AND MODEL 

P HILOSOPHERS and thinkers and non-think¬ 
ers have for ages surrounded art with a nebu¬ 
lous haze — almost impenetrable to a normal intel¬ 
lect. Yet art gets so involved with life that while life 
of a sort may be lived without art, art cannot exist 
without life. One in the stream of life “ must take 
the current ” whether “ it serves ” or no. That cur¬ 
rent with its eddying and swirling produces strange, 
fantastic, confusing and, at times, almost unbearable 
patterns. Art appears and lifts the buffeted spirit 
out of the slough of life and endows it with godlike 
attributes. The body may continue to struggle and 
to suffer, the mind to falter; but, in spite of this, the 
will may take control. Then, amid all the confused 
and warring elements, the spirit will assert its divine 
prerogative of choice and, through contrast, har¬ 
mony and co-ordination of selected elements, pro¬ 
duce a pattern which reflects itself, and establishes 
itself, in the realm of the imagination superior to the 
material and the transitory. In this welter of cir¬ 
cumstance the artist is born; the artist who does more 
than “ hold the mirror up to nature who dissects 
191 


CLUB PAPERS 

nature and from the parts builds up a new nature, a 
new synthesis in which his freed spirit may disport 
itself. 

Were it not that the artist will not remain under 
cover to enjoy himself to himself but needs must ex¬ 
pose his product to others, the subject might be 
dropped right here. But there is the innocent by¬ 
stander who has eyes, ears, feelings and occasionally 
intelligence, to be considered. He unwittingly or 
unwillingly may become involved — when will¬ 
ingly involved he ceases to be innocent and forfeits 
our sympathy. For the protection of this innocent 
party, that forewarned he may be forearmed, I at¬ 
tempt to disclose, in part at least, the nature of the 
artist. The artist need not necessarily be possessed 
of intellect. Intelligence? yes. Intellect? not neces¬ 
sarily! He uses certain faculties instinctively rather 
than intellectually. Now and again he is found 
with a trained and retentive memory which may sup¬ 
plement and, not infrequently, supplant the creative 
faculty. The prime factor of his spiritual equipment 
is imagination, that emotional mixing chamber in 
which he conjures up, sometimes vividly, more often 
dimly and hazily, the pattern or design which later 
he is to transfer to canvas or to writing pad. Into 
this chamber of the imagination the artist pours cer¬ 
tain ingredients of human experience and reaction, 
selecting as may be proper those ingredients which 
192 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


will induce a mood, arouse a passion or stimulate a 
desire ; the mixture depending in each and every case 
on the effect he wishes to produce and the validity 
of his purpose. There must be always a purpose ; 
indefinite or trivial sometimes it may seem, but with¬ 
out which the product falls short of art. Whatever 
comes into the mixing chamber, located in the ab¬ 
domen, as some opine, or in the cranium as others 
will have it — which has not as yet been definitely 
established, though the emotional character of the 
product would seem to favor the abdominal theory 
— whatever enters this chamber of the imagination 
quite certainly travels along the sense channels of 
the physical body; which may well account for the 
morality or immorality, the sickly sentiment or the 
firm reason around which art, in itself unmoral, al¬ 
lows itself to play. 

It must be understood that subject matter has in¬ 
trinsically nothing to do with art. An obscene story 
or a lewd picture may or may not be a work of art; 
that depends solely on the selection or rejection of 
forms within the mixing chamber. An artist can as 
readily present purity in the forms of art as he can 
present impurity. Purity and decency can not wring 
a laugh out of the prurient minded. However, art 
does not exist to produce a laugh or cater to pruri¬ 
ency; that potentiality lies in the subject matter 
alone. Only the moron can respond sympathetically 
193 


CLUB PAPERS 

to the appeal of producers and managers to permit 
the publication of obscene books, the presentation in 
public of lewd and indecent pictures, on easel or 
screen, because forsooth they are deemed to be cast 
in the mold of art and the dear public should not be 
deprived of the beneficent ministration of art! In 
these cases there is no salutary purpose in the art 
that can compensate for the degrading effect of filth 
on animal minds, for the appeal is to the animal in 
the body; the body — that marvelous instrument 
through which alone can mind, spirit or will func¬ 
tion. Indecency will not dwell in a body which its 
owner considers a temple of the god; which god is 
the owner himself made godlike through the exer¬ 
cise of his own will and capacity for happy selection. 

Let us come back to the artist who was nearly lost 
in the discussion of his product. There has existed 
a mistaken notion that the artist must be what he 
paints, what he acts, what he writes; or, at least that 
all the potentialities residing in all he simulates or 
presents must reside in him. As to the first there is 
no discussion; as to the second, the same potentiali¬ 
ties reside in the artist as reside in any normal man. 
In the process of creation the artist must free himself 
of personal emotionalisms except as he may stand 
outside himself and consciously study, in himself as 
in an outsider, reactions to his forms. u This is not 
real, it is merely simulation,” he says to himself. 
194 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


“ But am I making it seem real to him, the out¬ 
sider? ” The Romeo of the stage makes ardent love 
to his Juliet. Does he have to feel the passion in 
order to portray it? No, indeed. His real self for 
the time is pent up and the audience sees only a 
counterfeited passion. He who really loves is dumb 
before his enamorata. The commercial artist does 
not necessarily have to be an imbecile in order to 
depict the half-witted smile or grin which he smears 
upon the countenances of the males who pour out the 
libations in the various beer and liquor advertise¬ 
ments and on the faces of the damsels who are about 
to receive the dose 5 though I must admit that it 
would not be difficult to convince one’s self that the 
artist who produces the lewd cigarette advertise¬ 
ments appearing in supposedly first class magazines 
and on hoardings is a rake or libertine at heart. 

Knowing the public, as I think I do, and being not 
without a certain cynicism in my attitude toward it, 
I can understand this spoofing on the part of the 
artist, for generally such it must be; but are not 
brewer and tobacco fabricator taking chances in per¬ 
mitting it? Or are they just part of the ingenuous 
public! 

Again, knowing the artist, as I think I do, and his 
public, I have strong suspicion concerning much of 
the modernism in painting and architecture. I can¬ 
not say that I entertain strong convictions concerning 
195 


CLUB PAPERS 

this form of art, for the word conviction is too mo¬ 
mentous in its connotations to permit of use in con¬ 
nection with so trivial a manifestation. The only 
emotional content in much of the stuff is that which 
makes the judicious grieve. 

The artist, like the philosopher, takes his unim¬ 
passioned spirit to the serene heights of the mount 
of contemplation and from that point of vantage 
views the so-called passing scene. To him now, 
however, the scene is not passing for the expression 
of life is permanent as he views it from its source, an 
infinity of ages agone, to its latest ebullition. Within 
the picture are placid pools of thought set in plains 
of philosophical calm and self-restraint; rivers of 
action swirling among hills and vales of emotional¬ 
ism and hysteria 5 and rugged and precipitous moun¬ 
tains where rage titanic battles of negation and be¬ 
lief. In one of the regions of emotional activity 
bordering on hysteria, he sees life in our own land 
taking its erratic course unconscious, seemingly, of 
the past j indifferent, in most part, to the future. He 
sees its dictators or directors, for it has no leaders, 
and unemotionally, calmly and without rancor takes 
up pen or brush. 

Let me accompany my friend, the artist, up onto 
the mount of contemplation and look over his shoul¬ 
der as he works. He sketches one thing after an- 
196 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


other, as appears to meet his fancy; and I shall tell 
you what he is doing though I cannot reproduce it as 
calmly, dispassionately and with as sure a touch as he 
sets it down — nor shall I exert myself to do so. I 
may expose some of his and some of my own bent of 
opinion in the process of interpretation and explana¬ 
tion ; but I shall leave it to my hearer to differentiate 
between the two if he cares. It seems strange, does it 
not, that, from all the infinity of what human experi¬ 
ence past and present can offer us, we upon the Rock 
of Serenity should focus our gaze on feeble Wash¬ 
ington, in the United States of America, in the year 
of our Lord — whatever that may have meant forty 
centuries ago — nineteen hundred and thirty-three. 
But so it is! 

My friend, the artist, showed me the sketch pad 
on which he had been outlining in detail his impres¬ 
sions of a coded social system, and then he suddenly 
shifted his position. “ This is interesting,” said he 
stripping his pad, exposing a fresh sheet and casting 
his glance over toward the capitol dome beneath 
which and all about milled a crowd of human beings, 
looking and acting for all the world like an army of 
pismires groggy from external fumes or internal 
fury. The mass was given a certain unity by the per¬ 
colating presence of numerous long black coats and 
197 


CLUB PAPERS 


broad-brimmed slouch hats which serve to distin¬ 
guish, from the rest of the brood, the Southern poli¬ 
tician. Plenty of Northern politicians were in evi¬ 
dence, too, but so individualistic in dress and bearing 
as not to affect definitely the general tone of the pic¬ 
ture. Among the Northerners, democrats and re¬ 
publicans were to be distinguished; the republicans 
by a stiff, holy, self-righteous stand-offishness which 
has always marked their attitude toward the oppo¬ 
sition. Senators and Congressmen of both parties 
mingled with the crowd and cast an unhealthy hue 
over the scene, for they are in the way of being pim¬ 
ples on the body politic, which come to a head some¬ 
times in the halls of legislation but mostly in the 
pages of the Congressional Record. “Well! I 
should say this is interesting! ” I echoed, and 
added, “ but not as interesting as perhaps nauseat¬ 
ing; ” for from our point of vantage we could, as I 
have said, view life as a whole and clearly see the 
cause which was having its effect in the scene which 
was being enacted ’way down below us in the balmy, 
blossom-scented air of the Washington springtime. 
A sheet which had covered a shape on a pedestal had 
just been withdrawn and there stood the counterfeit 
presentment of one Robert E. Lee, traitor and rebel 
to some, the highest type of American manhood to 
others — others probably little versed in what con¬ 
stitutes Americanism or manhood. And the modern 
198 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


day politician had placed the effigy up against the 
statue of Washington, “ The Father of his Coun¬ 
try 5 ” an effrontery which only could have been 
exceeded by placing it next to the statue of the mar¬ 
tyred Lincoln — Lincoln who had saved the coun¬ 
try, which Washington had fathered, from destruc¬ 
tion at the hands of the Rebel, Lee. Standing in 
proximity to the Washington that statue of Lee is a 
sad joke; in proximity to the Lincoln it would be an 
insufferable insult to the nation. 

Shall we come down to earth for a close-up of this 
man placed in recent years upon this exalted pedestal 
by historian and politician alike? No, it were better 
to rest serene on our mount of contemplation where 
the air is not surcharged with the emotionalism which 
blurs images and distorts the real ; where the whole 
human scene appears just as ridiculous and petty and 
pathetic as it really is. No, we can distinguish de¬ 
tails from up here as well as we could down below in 
the sweltering mass and we can better relate one de¬ 
tail to another. 

“Look! ” said my friend, and we saw Lee on 
March 30, 1861, in the act of renewing his oath 
of allegiance upon accepting his commission of Colo¬ 
nel of Cavalry in the United States Army. “ He 
well knows what his oath implies and whither it may 
lead him. Seven states had already seceded and 
were in arms. He soon would be called upon to 
199 


CLUB PAPERS 

fight against secession which he deplored and against 
the institution of slavery which he abhorred; at least 
deplored and abhorred as much as a weak and flaccid 
mind such as his could be made to entertain a real 
passion.” 

“ How do you know,” said I, “ that Lee was an¬ 
tagonistic to slavery or to secession? His acts didn’t 
seem to indicate it.” “ Well, this from a letter of 
his of January 23, 1861, to his son and this from one 
of December 27,1856, to Mrs. Lee; ” and he put his 
fingertip upon these two passages — first: “ Seces¬ 
sion is nothing but Revolution. The framers of our 
constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom 
and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it 
by so many guards and securities, if it was intended 
to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at 
will. It is intended for £ perpetual union 5 so ex¬ 
pressed in the preamble and the establishment of a 
Government, not a compact, which can only be dis¬ 
solved by revolution or the consent of all the people 
in convention assembled,” and — second: “ In this 
enlightened age there are few, I believe, but will 
acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral 
and political evil in any country.” 

“ Those,” continued my friend, “ were his ex¬ 
pressed sentiments. But Lee never sewed himself 
up tight. He always left a loop-hole through which 
his shifty nature could escape. As for instance, he 
200 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


ends his letter of January 23 with this statement: 
c If the Union is dissolved and the Government dis¬ 
persed, I shall return to my native state and share 
the miseries of my people and save in defense will 
draw my sword no more.’ Lee liked the flabby senti¬ 
ment embodied in that last phrase and nearly wore it 
threadbare. c Except under such conditions or in 
such circumstances I will draw my sword no more/ 
he wrote again and again. 

“ Let us follow his course a bit farther,” said my 
friend, the artist, “ and then draw our own conclu¬ 
sions as to the nobility and integrity of Lee’s essential 
nature. On March 15, 1861, that is, fifteen days 
before he, tongue in cheek, had renewed his oath of 
allegiance to the United States, Lee was appointed to 
a commission in the Rebel army, to the highest mili¬ 
tary command in the gift of the Confederacy. On 
April 20, less than three weeks after renewing his 
oath of allegiance, Lee sent in his resignation from 
the United States Army in order to accept the Con¬ 
federate appointment. On April 23, with some cere¬ 
mony, Lee accepted the supreme command of the 
forces of Virginia, just one month to a day before 
the Virginia Convention’s proposal to secede could 
legally have been submitted to the people of the 
State for ratification or otherwise. Therefore, the 
‘ noble Lee ’ could not have followed Virginia out 
of the Union, could not have drawn an unstained 
201 


CLUB PAPERS 

sword in defense of his native state, for his state 
(forced out of the Union rather than going of its 
own motion) was not being attacked. 

“ In going over to the Confederacy Lee was put¬ 
ting into effect a design which had matured in his 
mind while still a Brigadier General of cavalry in 
the United States Army in San Antonio, Texas, be¬ 
fore being recalled to Washington to be elevated in 
command. Therefore, you and I, even in the se¬ 
renity of these calm heights, have a distinct right and 
perhaps a duty to call him traitor, while his actions 
proclaim him rebel. 

“ The unregenerate South,” my friend continued, 
“ calls the War of the Rebellion c the war between 
the states 5 but not so one who knows the background 
of the Rebellion. As all the acts, legislative and 
otherwise, of the Confederacy show the war on its 
side to have been solely a war to preserve the insti¬ 
tution of slavery, to fasten irrevocably the chains of 
human bondage, no man who, like Lee, gave himself 
heart and soul (if Lee had a soul) to the cause of 
slavery can even by any mistaken notion of decency 
be called c noble. 5 No man who, like Lee, gave the 
enemy good reason to believe him sympathetic to its 
cause, and open to offers, while at the time maintain¬ 
ing status in the United States Army, can by any 
stretch of even a distorted imagination be called a 
loyal American. Wishywashy historians and politi- 
202 


ARTIST AND MODEL 


dans of the North and prejudiced historians of a re¬ 
calcitrant South may try, with buckets of whitewash, 
to make Lee noble and loyal; but his spirit will for¬ 
ever remain in essence disloyal and ignoble.” 

My friend had laid in these lines with the ex¬ 
tremes of calmness and dispassion, and I wondered 
if anything could break in on the serenity of his spirit. 
As for me, I confess I found myself moved. I could 
see why, for reasons to be advanced later, certain ele¬ 
ments in the North and certain others in the South 
should want to elevate Lee to a high pedestal, but 
why should anyone, especially a Northern historian, 
or any true historian, seek, as has been and is being 
done, deliberately to defame and besmirch loyal 
Union soldiers and officers in the attempt to elevate 
Lee. 

You have been told in this Club, in a sympathetic 
study of Lee, of the atrocities committed by the 
Union soldiers, especially on Sherman’s March to 
the Sea j of the firing of barns and fine old mansions 
out of pure wantonness. Our essayist told quite 
gleefully how his parents had run all the stock to the 
swamps and had hidden it till the loyal — only he 
did not call it loyal — army had passed. He gave 
the impression that the parental mansion had been 
burned. 

Well, if it wasn’t burned it should have been, for 
those animals were contraband under every usage 
203 


CLUB PAPERS 

of war. He knew, as you know, that the invading 
army was there to saye the Union from destruction 
by those who wilfully, deliberately and in malice 
had fired the first shots and had taken loyal lives. 
The homes of the rebels might well have been 
burned, but they were not by Union men except as 
punishment in some extreme case. Go into Virginia 
today, and farther South, and follow the course of 
Sherman’s March and among the things you will 
see, and which are advertised to be seen, are the fine 
old ante-bellum mansions the sight of which will be 
expected to awaken your uncouth Northern hearts to 
the charm and romance of a social order which blos¬ 
somed and could flourish only in the sweet-scented 
soil of human slavery. 

I have said that there are reasons why certain in 
our land wish to elevate Lee. I can touch on but 
a few of these and characterize but a few of the in¬ 
stigators. Those were not disinterested or uninter¬ 
ested congressmen and senators whom we saw hob¬ 
nobbing with the politicians of both sections, North 
and South, in that huddle of pismires around the 
Capitol on the occasion of the unveiling of the statue 
of Lee last Spring (1933). Republican politicians, 
indeed, were the prime offenders. It started with 
Taft but showed itself most virulently in the Cool- 
idge administration. Coolidge, you know, upon 
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signing a bill authorizing the minting of the so- 
called traitor coin to help finance the Stone Moun¬ 
tain project, pusillanimously permitted himself to be 
photographed between two Confederate flags with 
no evidence of the National emblem in sight; and 
G. O. Partisan legislators listened with approval to 
the harangues of a rebel senator who, in his effort to 
glorify the Confederacy, besmirched the Union and 
vilified its leaders in the Civil War — all this self- 
abasement in order to curry favor with, hoping to 
break the ranks of, the solid, the unreconstructed 
South! 

“ But,” chides a timid voice, “ those are harsh 
words — rebel and unreconstructed! The South 
today is loyal $ it acknowledges but one flag, the 
stars and stripes.” One flag! “ Oh, yeah,” answers 
my friend, u no flag, rather! ” 

TIME, the news magazine, in reporting the 
launching of the dirigible Macon in Akron, Ohio, 
stated that “ a delegation from Macon, Ga., waved 
flags.” John L. Morris, Manager, Chamber of 
Commerce of Macon wrote in correction — “ No 
flags were waved. Proud of the distinction of hav¬ 
ing the world’s largest dirigible named after their 
home city, yes; but no flagwavers are Maconians.” 
This in TIME’S letters July 25, 1932 — while on 
June 13 of the same year one Thomas F. Little of 
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Chattanooga, Tenn., had wound up his letter to 
TIME with these words: “There are legions of 
these Yankees (Yanks, i.e., World War Soldiers) 
in the South today, native sons, proud of their heri¬ 
tage, regretting nothing which their forefathers did, 
convinced that they were right through and through 
and who would take up tomorrow where they left 
off if there was a sufficient cause but who fully realize 
that the true United States lay not to the North but 
to the South and with this responsibility upon them 
would fight all over again to preserve the Union.” 

Which means, if it means anything, that this 
“ little ” man, along with legions of others, would 
fight tomorrow to preserve that Union which lay 
to the South and which harbored and was based upon 
the institution of slavery; not based, mind you, on 
the doctrine of State’s rights, which the Constitution 
of the Confederacy does not mention nor deem to 
exist, but solely upon the institution of slavery. 
This “ little ” man would fight tomorrow to main¬ 
tain slavery if the issue could be joined! The Re¬ 
publican party under Coolidge degraded itself in a 
futile attempt to get the political goodwill of such 
as these. It is these and their ilk who initiated the 
Stone Mountain project; Stone Mountain which 
vitiates the pure air of heaven by forcing it to blow 
across the graven images of three archtraitors. 

An Illinois Governor, a Republican, let his name 
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be placed upon the Stone Mountain directorate. In 
a speech before the Daughters of the Confederacy 
in Convention assembled at Savannah, Georgia, in 
1924 that Governor had this to say: “ When I visit 
Richmond and gaze upon the statue of Robert E. 
Lee, that masterpiece of art, I like to think that the 
knightly figure there portrayed was a countryman of 
mine, and that I have a small part in the immortal 
fame that has come to him.” 

You don’t blame my artist friend for laughing 
and remarking: a as for me, the smaller the part the 
more gratifying; ” and, he continued, a just to 
think! that speech is embalmed in the Congressional 
Record.” (February 6, 1925.) That Governor, 
too, has allowed himself to be quoted as follows: 
“ Standing here in front of the mountain, gazing up 
at the mighty wall of granite, picturing in my mind 
the colossal figures of Davis, Lee and Jackson, which 
are taking form, I felt a great thrill of pride that 
these men, whose portraits in stone will endure as 
long as the earth endures, were Americans.” 

Americans! forsooth! If a politician must stoop 
to getting votes for self or party, kissing dirty-faced 
babies were preferable to such prostitution as the 
above. 

But snobs as well as politicians have played their 
part in the elevation of Lee to the post of the great 
American. The wife of a Republican Senator of 
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New Hampshire lobbied to put through the bill re¬ 
habilitating the Lee mansion, so called, at Arlington, 
and dedicating it to the memory of Lee, who cared 
so little for it that he swore that he never would re¬ 
turn to it as it had been so defiled by the mere pres¬ 
ence of the Union soldiers who had protected it from 
harm during the period of the war. 

Our present Minister to Germany in his capa¬ 
city of historian wrote — “ Robert E. Lee, master 
of Arlington, heir of the Father of his Country, 
Mary Custis, his invalid wife, cast out of the home 
of her ancestors; Robert E. Lee, trying then to set 
free the slaves of the Mount Vernon estate.” And 
here my artist friend quoted a footnote in a great 
work called “ The Reward of Patriotism ” by Lucy 
Shelton Stewart, daughter of a Union general. Par¬ 
enthetically I wish every loyal American or Ameri¬ 
can of any stripe would read this book! The note 
reads: “ These statements of Professor Dodd are of 
singular interest, since Lee was not the master of Ar¬ 
lington nor the heir of the Father of his Country, 
because his father-in-law entailed the property upon 
his grandson so that Lee never owned any of it. Nor 
was Mrs. Lee cast out of her home. Lee set the 
slaves free because his father-in-law’s will directed 
that they be freed. These truths are shown in the 
Lee biographies by his son and nephew.” 

There could be no possible objection to the Gov- 
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ARTIST AND MODEL 


ernment’s acquiring Arlington as a National Mu¬ 
seum and as a monument to a not as yet dead past; 
but only snobs or rebel sympathizers could wish it 
to be made a monument to Lee, who is presented as 
heir to the Father of his Country in the hope, per¬ 
haps, of giving dignity to their own self-imposed 
low estate. For such as these the home of a descend¬ 
ant of the great Washington (which you know it 
was not) must be preserved for the ages in its pris¬ 
tine purity (which is impossible for Lee’s name is at¬ 
tached to it! ). But it pleases the climbers to be linked 
with Washington even through the slight channel 
of a house which had once been owned by the great- 
granddaughter of the widow Custis who became 
Washington’s wife. 

But what a depth of insult in thus exalting Lee do 
these petty politicians and self-seekers heap upon 
those Virginians who were loyal to the Union, upon 
such men as Generals Winfield Scott and George 
H. Thomas, both loyal Virginians who could be and 
were loyal to the greater cause. 

“ Do not think,” said my friend, “ that in offering 
my strictures I forget that many, many, indeed a re¬ 
spectable minority of those living South of Mason 
and Dixon’s line, including Mrs. Robert E. Lee, 
herself, favored the preservation of the Union and 
were antagonistic to the institution of slavery, for 
that was the fact; while many were made to suffer 
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for their loyalty throughout the period of the c slave¬ 
holders’ Rebellion ’ and even later — perhaps until 
this day.” 

I watched my friend, the artist, as he sketched in 
another detail or two with firm and well directed 
stroke. Then he said with what sounded like a sigh: 
“ It’s funny — ” I interrupted: “ Funny is a funny 
word in this connection! ” 

“ Yes,” he returned, “ I am using the word merely 
as a synonym for amusing, amazing, disgusting, in¬ 
credible, depending upon the user’s state of mind. 
Yes, it’s funny where this mawkish, old womanish 
sentimentality, which says c let bygones be bygones ’ 
regardless of right and honor and decency and which 
sends flowers to the perpetrators of fiendish mur¬ 
ders, will crop out. Now you would hardly expect 
it to appear in a callous, hard-headed bunch like the 
American Bar Association, an arm of the judicial 
branch of our Government, whose function suppos¬ 
edly is to further the cause of right and justice, but 
whose chief interest seems centered in technicalities.” 
“ Come now,” I interposed, “ isn’t that a bit tough 
on the bar! ” “ By their works ye shall know them,” 
he said, “ and judge them.” Then he continued, 
“ The Atlanta Journal of March n, 1924, begins 
an editorial thusly: c Time is the great vindicator of 
right because it is the great clarifier. Forty years 
ago one hardly could have imagined the Citizenship 
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ARTIST AND MODEL 


Committee of the American Bar Association prepar¬ 
ing and publishing with the approval of that broadly 
representative body, a tribute to Robert E. Lee. 5 

“ The tribute referred to, published in the interest 
of good citizenship, 55 my friend went on to explain, 
u was entitled c Washington, Lee and Lincoln, the 
great triumvirate among the makers of America. 5 
You see Lee is given precedence over Lincoln in this 
American Bar Association document which con¬ 
tinues: c He (Lee) too, was a great American patriot. 
And as years go by and only the more prominent 
figures among the makers of America stand out in 
retrospect, we shall find that not one of them — no, 
not one — offers to this and future generations a 
more priceless example of duty to country as he saw 
it than is found in the high-souled, finely poised 
character, the model Christian gentleman, the soul 
of gentility and honor, Robert E. Lee. 5 55 

“ My gawd! 55 Each looked to see if the other 
had uttered the ejaculation. Neither had. It was 
the cry of the great soul of patriotism and decency 
and honor reverberating in the circumambient air. 

u As he saw it! 55 A vicious term used by sickly 
sentimentalists and barristers in extenuation of any 
crime they may wish to condone. Christian gentle¬ 
man! We realized at once why the term had be¬ 
come so obnoxious even in modern Germany! The 
Committee of the American Bar Association, headed 
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by Elihu Root of New York, which had put forth 
this document, was composed of Root, three “yes 
men,” one each from Pennsylvania, Minnesota and 
Kansas, and a chairman, one R. E. L. Saner of Texas. 
When you consider the State and what the initials, 
R. E. L., of its representative might and probably 
did signify, you can see how the superannuated Root 
and the little “ yes men ” from the provinces had 
had it put over on them! 

There my friend, the artist, stripped his pad and 
exposed a clean sheet which, however, he left un¬ 
touched. Then, suddenly packing his kit, he said: 
“ Let’s get away from the City of Washington with 
its self-seeking, its intrigues, its personal and politi¬ 
cal bickerings, its little Mussolinis and Hitlers and 
Stalins who never will or can grow up to life size for 
they will wilt and shrivel up in the vital airs which 
blow across a wide country which the Fates have 
dedicated to the cause of political and personal 
liberty. 

“ There you are,” he said, “ just one thing after 
another! That makes life — and makes it interest¬ 
ing.” 


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